A RARE TANG SANCAI PHOENIX-HEAD EWER.

The pear-shaped body supported on a flared foot, one side carved with a hunter drawing his bow across the back of his galloping horse, the reverse with a triumphant phoenix, surrounded by ornate flowers issuing from the oval surround, the neck surmounted by a phoenix head grasping a pearl in the beak below the oval opening in the top of the head, surmounted by an arched handle with leaf terminals falling to the shoulder, the head and body glazed with a mix of amber, green, blue and cream glaze.

While a number of similar ewers can be found in important museums and institutions worldwide, extremely few are glazed with cobalt blue like the current example. One such ewer is in the collection of Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 9, Tokyo, 1982, col. pl. 35. See one more example from the Baron Fujita Collection, sold in Christie’s Hong Kong, 30 November 2016, lot.3306.

Dimension: 9 7/16" (24cm) H; 6 11/16" (17cm) W.

PROVENANCE: Private collection, previously purchased from Japan.


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