A FINE 'YAOZHOU' CELADON MOLDED 'FISH' BOWL

Description:

China, Jin dynasty, 13th c.
D. 12,.2 cm
The thinly potted conical sides rising from a short ring foot to a flared rim, molded on the interior in crisp low relief with four fish swimming amid waves, the exterior highly carved with radiating flutes, covered inside and out with a bubble-suffused olive-green glaze, the beveled footrim unglazed.
Important South German private collection, acquired on 29.6.1989 from Michael Weisbrod, N. Y.
A pair of bowls of this pattern in the Percival David Foundation illustrated in Margaret Medley, Catalogue, section 7, no. 20, where it is mentioned that the design is reproduced as a line drawing in the archaeological report on the Yaozhou kilns Shensi Tungquan Yaozhou yao, p. 33, fig. 22, no. 4; also in Jan Wirgin, Sung Ceramic Designs, London, 1979, pl. 8j, where another in the Honolulu Academy of Arts is noted. Another bowl of similar design but with twin fish, is in the Kwan collection and included in the exhibition Song Ceramics from the Kwan Collection, 22nd July to 11th September 1994, Hong Kong, p. 200, no. 82
Good condition