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Glazed stoneware bowl with “tiger skin” (hupiwen) glaze, Southern Song-Yuan Period, Thirteenth/Fourteenth Century, Jizhou ware, from the kilns at Yonghe Ji’an, Jiangxi province, diameter 4¼ inches.

Glazed stoneware jar, Northern Song period, Eleventh/Twelfth Century, Yaozhou kilns, Shanxi province, height 6½ inches.

FOR 3-2

ESKENAZI OFFERS SONG CHINESE CERAMICS IN NEW YORK w/2 cuts

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NEW YORK CITY — An exhibit of fine Chinese ceramics from the Song dynasty will be staged by Eskenazi Limited at PaceWildenstein, March 19–31. Visitors to the exhibition “Song: Chinese ceramics, Tenth to Thirteenth Century (part 3)” will have the opportunity to see an entirely fresh selection of 18 rare Song pieces, acquired by Eskenazi over the past few years.

The Song dynasty was culturally a brilliant era in Chinese history and a time of great social and economic change. This period saw an unsurpassed refinement in many of the arts and crafts, especially in the field of ceramic technology and appreciation. Song wares are noted for their perfection of form and the variety of their glazes — often in muted, subtle tones — achieved through unceasing experimentation.

Among the highlights of the exhibition will be a white glazed Ding ware dish of the Northern Song period, with carved decoration and cream-toned glaze, exemplifying the very best of the first type of porcelain commissioned by imperial order.

From the Southern Song period, dating from after the forced flight of the imperial court — and representative of one of the most beautiful and sought-after wares in all Chinese ceramic art — is a blue-green glazed guanyao flower-shaped dish from the Hangzhou kilns. Both these pieces, being “official” wares, have been handed down from generation to generation. Their history can be traced back, in the west, at least to the 1930s, to the collections of, respectively, C.T. Loo and J.M. Hu.

Another major piece from the Ding kilns is an extremely rare creamy-white pillow decorated with an exuberant design of scrolling peony-like flowers and foliage. It is inscribed with three characters meaning “heavenly flower pillow,” placed just under where the head would have lain.

The exhibition will also feature a selection of other wares, from both north and south of the country, now considered the equal of these “official” ceramics, showing the range and artistry of the numerous kilns that supplied this burgeoning industry. Perhaps of greatest interest, and of exceptional rarity, is a celadon-glazed stoneware jar from the Yaozhou kilns of Shaanix province. It is almost spherical in form and boldly carved overall with interlocking geometric patterns filled with flower and leaf forms. Only one other comparable vessel seems to have been recorded.

Another Northern piece, from the Jun kilns in Henan province and dating to the Jin period, Twelfth–Thirteenth Century, is a tripod censer. The compressed globular body rests on three bulbous cabriole legs and is covered with a lustrous, thick blue glaze, stopping unevenly at the feet and thinning at the edge of the rim, decorated with irregular splashed and patches of mottled purple.

A particularly striking bowl of Jizhou ware from the kilns at Yonghe, Ji’an, Jiangxi province, in the south, dates from the late Song/early Yuan period, Thirteenth–Fourteenth Century. Thinly potted, it is covered in a dark brown and caramel-colored glaze known at ‘tiger skin’ (hupiwen), its streaks and splashes distinguishing it from the better known tortoiseshell glaze. Of the same period and from the same kilns at Yonghe is a sturdy stoneware meiping covered all over with a smooth, opaque, dark brown glaze with designs in a lighter wood-ash glaze that imitate motifs borrowed from high prestige items in silver and lacquer.

PaceWildenstein is at 32 East 57th Street. For information, www.eskenazi.co.uk or 212-421-3688.