A Chinese black-glazed ribbed two-handled jar, Northern Song or Jin

L.: 20 cm - H.: 17,5 cm

Provenance: The collection of a Belgian connoisseur, acquired in London in the 1970's or 80's.

Ref.: Sotheby's, Hong Kong, Oct. 2, 2017, lot 9. (link) Here it is noted that "Wares of this type were produced at numerous kilns in Henan, Hebei and Shandong provinces. Robert D. Mowry discusses this group in detail in the catalogue to the exhibition Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers. Chinese Brown-and Black-Glazed Ceramics, 400-1400, Harvard University Art Museum, Cambridge, 1995, pp 174-177, which included two rather different examples, cat. nos. 61 and 64, and proposes various distinctions between the different manufacturing centres. This would suggest that the present jar might come from Zibo in Shandong. Mowry suggests that jars from Shandong have short straight necks with straight-cut lips, that the ribs appear very white (rather than yellow) because the glaze that covers them is rather transparent, that they can begin at different points around the top, and that the jars are often fully glazed, 'sometimes with a circle wiped free on the floor so a small pot could be fired inside' (p. 177). This firing technique of placing a smaller jar inside a larger vessel is evidenced in the small spur marks on the interior of the present jar, as well as an excavated jar of this type, with the smaller jar still inside, unearthed at the Zibo kilns in Shandong province, and illustrated in Wenwu, 1979, vol. 6, p. 57, pls 32 and 33. Jars of this type are also often found with the lowest part unglazed, with the biscuit exposed, or covered with only a thin light brown glaze layer."