The water-dropper is of upright ovoid form with a short waisted neck and flared mouth into which a lion-like creature with incised features is plunging its forequarters, with the rest of its body forming the handle. The short tapered spout has a band of cog-like striations around its base. A white glaze covers the ewer, stopping two-thirds of the way down the body to reveal the very fine-grained unglazed white porcelain body. The neatly made solid foot is also unglazed.
Provenance:
CT Loo, New York, June 1950
Christie's, New York, 'The Falk Collection I: Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art', 16th October 2001, lot 25. Falk Collection no. 160
Exhibited:
'Early Chinese Miniatures', New York, China House Gallery, China Institute in America 1977, no. 122
'Kawaii Miniatures', MOA Museum Japan, 2005, no. 46l.
Priestley & Ferraro, 'Chinese and Korean Ceramics and Works of Art', 2016, no. 1.
A very similar Xing water-dropper is illustrated in Xing kiln in its Millennium, p. 149 (right), and another, excavated from the site of the Xijiao Thermo-electric Plant in Xi'an, is illustrated in the catalogue of the Istanbul exhibition, Treasures of China, p. 123.