A CHINESE STONEWARE STORAGE JAR IN FORM OF AN OWL,Warring States Period (475 - 221BC), the ovoid body pressed with a layer of feathers extendingto the waist and glazed from head to waist to a thinning pale olive tone, two appliedhandles to shoulders and raised on two tubular legs, and wide splayed tail, 38.5cm highWith thermoluminescence test certificate VHTL-P760, Universitat fur angewandte Kunst, Vienna, 10 February 2004.Spirits of Origin and ProphecyAs far back at least as the Shang Dynasty (and hence even before 1050 BC), owls are known to have loomed large in the Chinese consciousness; owls throng among the beliefs and mythology of these early peoples. The Shang believed that they originated from a mythological ‘black bird’, identified by some as being an owl. Whatever the truth of that identification, it is at least clear that during the Shang Dynasty, owls were regarded as auspicious, as protectors and stimulators of fertile crops. When this dynasty was in time succeeded by that of the Zhou, Zhou workmen borrowed from the Shang their repertoire of decorative designs. In consequence, owls lived on in art and retained something of their ancient mythic power. They also lived on in literature, and although in some literary contexts they started to assume a less benign appearance, still the ancient totemic force of the owl existed as an undertow and made its presence felt. A poet of the Han Dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD), Jia Yi, finding himself exiled to the remote southern Chinese province of Changsha, viewed an owl which had visited him one day as a prophetic embodiment of his own personal Daoist beliefs; incarnated in his owl visitor was a spirit speaking eloquently of life, death, and the Mandate of Heaven. Owl storage jars of the type offered here are very rare; the present instance, partially covered in a pale olive-green lead-based glaze over stoneware, dates from the period of the Warring States.Prof. Alan. J Fletcher, MRIA