Why Does This 1000-Year-Old Chinese Vase Feel So Modern¿

In my hands here is the thousand-year-old vase, emblematic of Chinese ceramic history. It really has a wonderful timeless quality, transcending all cultural boundaries and retaining a truly universal timeless appeal. The vase is preserved in an extraordinarily good condition and it really encapsulates the aesthetic of the Song Dynasty. In contrast to the ceramics made for the Imperial Court, which are much more precise and more formulaic. These vases, created for the scholarly elite, have a much more naturalistic approach, a more spontaneous design. The vase is carved with large luxuriant peony flowers. Peony flowers in the Song dynasty are really symbolic of Confucian self-restraint and virtue. The vase is created with this sgraffito technique. First it's covered with this creamy white slip and then a second slip, this dark chocolatey brown slip, is applied throughout and then the artist carves through the darker brown layer, revealing the design underneath, and then intricately incises the design here. The carver who's carved these lustrous peony flowers, it's kind of like an artist using calligraphic brushstrokes on paper. There's a spontaneity of approach here. When one holds it, one can actually trace the precise movement that the carver used to create it 1,000 years ago. You can feel the whole design articulated. It's extremely rare to find a Sgraffito Cizhou vase of this size and quality preserved in such good condition. There are several recorded in the Tokyo National Museum, the British Museum, and there was one we sold last year in Hong Kong, but none of the others have such a pronounced, sumptuous, bulbous form as this current one. It's incredible to hold a vase which is 1,000 years old. It makes one think of who previously owned it, what it had been used for, perhaps in literati gatherings, used as a wine jar. When you look at it, you can see it would fit as naturally into an interior setting now as it did back in the 1960s.