CHINESE YUE-WARE 'CHICKEN-HEAD' EWER
EASTERN JIN DYNASTY, 317-420 AD
£1,890
Auction: 16 May 2025 from 09:00 BST
Description
東晉 越窰青釉雞首執壺
the globular body rising to a waisted neck with galleried rim, flanked by a chicken-head spout opposite a curved handle, the shoulders set with two angled lug handles, covered in a greyish-green glaze with brown iron spots at the mouth
Dimensions
20cm high
Footnote
Referred in the current archaeological studies as ‘chicken-headed’ ewers, pieces in this shape represent the efforts of Jiangsu-Zhejiang potters to design funerary articles. Some comparable examples of Yue kiln chicken-headed ewers dated to the Jin dynasty: one is in the Victoria & Albert Museum, dated to the Six Dynasties period (265-589 AD), accession number: C.51-1910; one in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, also dated to the Six Dynasties, accession no. EA1956.211; another is in the Metropolitan Museum, object no. 1979.353; one further in the collection of Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, museum number: B60 P171.