A RARE LONGQUAN CELADON KINUTA (MALLET) VASE WITH PHOENIX HANDLES, SOUTHERN SONG China, 1127-1279. The mallet-shaped body rising to a wide everted rim, set to the neck with a pair of stylized phoenix handles with detailed crown and wings, covered overall with a glaze of olive-green tone stopping above the foot burnt orange in the firing.

Condition: With minor wear and firing irregularities. The neck with a kintsugi repair.
Provenance: From a New York private collection and thence by descent to the present owner.

Weight: 410 g
Dimensions: Height 18.5 cm

Literature comparison: Published examples include one in the Bishmon-do Temple, previously in the possession of a branch of the Tokugawa Family, the former Daimyos of Kyushu, illustrated by Gompertz, Chinese Celadon Wares, London, Hong Kong, 1962, 1980, plate 78, and another two illustrated ibidem, one from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, color plate G and the other, from the Yomei Bunko Collection, plate 80, and finally one in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Lung-Chuan Ware of the Sung Dynasty, plates 5 and 5a. Mallet vases with dragon and phoenix handles were also found in the wreck of a Yuan dynasty ship near Sinan and were included in the Special Exhibition of Cultural Relics Found off Sinan Coast, Seoul, 1977, and illustrated in the catalogue, plates 4-7.

Auction result comparison: Compare a closely related Longquan celadon mallet vase, also dated to the Southern Song dynasty and with near-identical twin phoenix handles, at Christie’s Hong Kong in Important Chinese Art on 30 October 2001, lot 777, sold for HKD 235,000.