Jar (guan) with Carved Decoration of Phoenixes in Flight among Peonies                        

Yuan dynasty, first quarter of 14th century                

Light grey stoneware with white slip and transparent glaze

Cizhou ware: Hebei or Henan Province

Height 26.3 cm

The jar is of elegant and well-balanced shape: the globular body rises from a narrow foot and ends in a short flared neck with prominent lip. The exterior is decorated with six decorative bands with superbly carved decoration in sgraffiato technique: the widest band with two phoenixes in flight among peonies; underneath a band of peonies and another band of lotus petals. The three narrow bands above the widest band are decorated with a key-fret design, a foliage scroll and a petal design. The foot is unglazed revealing the grey clay body having taken on an orange-brown colour during firing. This jar is remarkable for its elegant shape and splendid decoration executed in the most masterful technique with an unusual degree of fluency and refinement. It demonstrates the highest level of sgraffiato carving and appears to be the most splendidly decorated Yuan dynasty example of this technique, using white slip with transparent glaze.

Similar Examples:

Yuan dynasty Cizhou ware with white slip and sgraffiato carving is exceedingly rare. Only one similar jar with less elaborate and fluently executed decoration, formerly in the Eumorfopoulos Collection, appears to be recorded:

Margaret Medley, Yuan Porcelain and Stoneware, London: Faber and Faber, 1974, pl. 105B.

For a jar of different shape, but similar carving style with phoenixes in flight among peonies and a border with lotus petal design, excavated at Ch’a-yu-ch’ien-ch’i, Inner Mongolia, see:

Yutaka Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz’u-chou Type Wares, 960-1600 A.D., Indianapolis, 1980, p. 96, fig. 87.    

A Yuhuchunping vase of similar clay body, white slip, transparent glaze and style of sgraffiato decoration with an ink inscription on its base dating it to 1314-20, in a Japanese private collection, provides important evidence for the dating of this group of white slipped sgraffiato decorated Cizhou wares to the first quarter of the 14th century, see:

Sekai Tōji Zenshū, Vol. 13: Liao, Chin and Yuan Dynasties, Tokyo, 1981, p. 240, pl. 263.

Margaret Medley, Yuan Porcelain and Stoneware, London: Faber and Faber, 1974. pl. 105A.