The white ceramic which preceded the arrival of the Northern Song and was the first imperial porcelain offered stylized floral motifs of great simplicity. During the subsequent Southern Song period 800 years ago, the geometric purity continues to inspire artists but with different styles such as the ingenious crackled texture.
Interlaced floral patterns form another consistent example of this artistic evolution. On September 16 in New York, Sotheby's sells a meiping vase from the time of the Southern Song, lot 6 estimated $ 2.5M, 28.6 cm high.
The meiping is one of the most common shapes of Chinese vases, with a swollen shoulder and a very small opening that enables it to be used as a flower vase. Meiping means 'vase for plum blossoms'.
At that time when the cobalt blue was not yet used, the decoration is incised without added colors. The lilies and lotus are guided by rotating stems in an intricate network of spirals. Amidst that lush two infant boys appear, one on each side of the vase.
The theme of the baby in the flowers had begun in the Chinese iconography at the end of the Tang Dynasty to express the hope of abundance and perhaps also the reincarnation.
The ancient Chinese loved the glazes in very pale colors. The glaze of this meiping is a qingbai in a translucent light green that does not mask the perfection of the white ceramic bulk.
Interlaced floral patterns form another consistent example of this artistic evolution. On September 16 in New York, Sotheby's sells a meiping vase from the time of the Southern Song, lot 6 estimated $ 2.5M, 28.6 cm high.
The meiping is one of the most common shapes of Chinese vases, with a swollen shoulder and a very small opening that enables it to be used as a flower vase. Meiping means 'vase for plum blossoms'.
At that time when the cobalt blue was not yet used, the decoration is incised without added colors. The lilies and lotus are guided by rotating stems in an intricate network of spirals. Amidst that lush two infant boys appear, one on each side of the vase.
The theme of the baby in the flowers had begun in the Chinese iconography at the end of the Tang Dynasty to express the hope of abundance and perhaps also the reincarnation.
The ancient Chinese loved the glazes in very pale colors. The glaze of this meiping is a qingbai in a translucent light green that does not mask the perfection of the white ceramic bulk.
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