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Lot Essay
Plain globular vessels without lugs or handles dating from the Tang period (618-907) are typically known as wan nian guan, or 'ten thousand year jars'. These funerary jars were commonly filled with grain and interred with the deceased in Tang tombs. Although produced initially as high-shouldered, piriform vessels only in black, brown and white glazes, potters of the 8th and 9th century created the more rounded wan nian guan type in a variety of vibrant sancai- splashed lead glazes. These low-fired vessels originally seem to have been the product of a single kiln district in Henan before becoming a staple product of other northern kilns. For a discussion of the development of these jars, see W. Watson, Tang and Liao Ceramics, New York, 1984, pp. 108-113, and R. Mowry, Hare's Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers, Cambridge, Massachussetts, 1996, pp. 88-89.
A jar with similarly applied glazes in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, Tokyo, 1981, vol. 9, no. 12; and by R. Krahl in Chinese Ceramics in the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, London, 1994, p. 139, no. 229.
A jar with similarly applied glazes in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, Tokyo, 1981, vol. 9, no. 12; and by R. Krahl in Chinese Ceramics in the Meiyintang Collection, vol. I, London, 1994, p. 139, no. 229.