
Coco Li
Cataloguer / Sale Coordinator, Chinese Works of Art
This auction has ended. View lot details



Sold for US$61,440 inc. premium
Our Impressionist and Modern Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialist
Cataloguer / Sale Coordinator, Chinese Works of Art

Senior Vice President, US Head, Asian Art Group

Vice President and Head of Department

Senior Specialist
唐 黃綠彩盤龍蓮瓣燭臺
Provenance
Christie's Los Angeles, 4 December 1998, lot 51 and attributed to late Sui-early Tang dynasty (late 6th-early 7th century)
來源
洛杉磯佳士得拍賣行,1998年12月4日,拍品編號51,定為隋末至唐初(紀元六世紀末至七世紀初)
For a very similar example see Kaikodo Journal V, Hong Kong, 1997, p. 206, no. 62, where the authors discuss the use of candles among the Tang nobility. Compare also with a very similar, green-glazed example illustrated in the Tsui Museum of Art, Chinese Ceramics I, Hong Kong 1993, no. 84, which bears a cover suggesting its possible use as a censer.
Compare the similarly modeled candleholder in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated by Tseng and Dart, The Charles B. Hoyt Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts: Boston, Volume I, Boston, 1964, no. 63, and another illustrated by William Watson, Tang and Liao Ceramics, Friborg, 1984, p. 46, pl. 26 and dated to the 7th century from the Cleveland Museum of Art, with lotus petals to the lower part rather than the pan of this example. See also the Tang dynasty candleholder with coiled dragons in the collection of the Beijing Palace Museum, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Porcelain of the Jin and Tang Dynasties, Hong Kong, 1996, p. 185, no. 171.
Candleholder of this type exists as early as Sui dynasty. Compare, for several Sui dynasty examples, the straw-glazed white boshanlu with coiled dragon support in the collection of the Yamato Bunkakan, Nara, illustrated in the catalog of the exhibition organized by the Nezu Institute of Arts, Tang Pottery and Porcelain, Tokyo, 1988, p. 24, no. 9, together with a green-glazed boshanlu with coiled dragon support, in the collection of the Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo, on p. 25, no. 10, and a straw-glazed white candleholder with coiled dragon support in the collection of the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art on p. 25, no. 11.