Green-glazed pottery tripod 'hill' jar, Han Dynasty, 206 BC - 220 AD

This jar would have served as a mortuary object (mingqi), placed in a tomb as a substitute for the more valuable bronze and lacquer vessels. Along with a variety of other funerary earthenware objects, attendant figures, and animals, richly decorated vessels of this kind were intended to serve the spirit of the deceased in the afterlife. Period : Han dynasty Type : Jar Medium : Earthenware Dimension : 28.5 cm(Height) x 11cm(Mouth Diameter) Condition : Good(Overall in well-preserved ancient burial condition with some soil still adhering (showing minor abrasions and wear due to prolonged burial underground) Provenance : Acquired in late 1990s from Hongkong * Han Dynasty Earthenware...

This piece is an elephant statue made of green-glazed pottery. During the Han Dynasty, artworks depicting elephants were quite rare. However, such representations did occasionally appear. For example, the bronze vessel from the Han Dynasty housed in the Shanghai Museum is one of the notable examples of this type of craftsmanship. The existence of elephants in ancient China is attested both by archaeological evidence and by depictions in Chinese artwork. Long thought to belong to an extinct subspecies of the Asian elephant named Elephas maximus...

This is a fine, heavily patinated example of a Han hu wine storage vessel, buried for the afterlife. The compressed globular body narrows to a slender waisted neck, covered with a da...

Slab pottery constructed Model of a Paper Mill, in Green and Cream Color Glazed Terracotta having a peaked roof – open walled form with a mechanical pounder and a large round storage container. Light blue-green mottled glazed surface with some iridescence patina to the glaze. The Iridescence is a refraction of the layers on the glass that produces multicolor hues & metallic luster, and only develops after one thousand years of being buried in the ground. An unquestionable mark of antiquity, impossible to falsify. Han Dynasty, dated 206 B.C-220 A.D. Condition: Excellent, wear commensurate with age, an unusual example. This fantastic piece is accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity. Sculptural effigies of domesticated animals were often interred in the tombs of nobility and elite members of the social hierarchy. Models like this one were made to represent everything from simple goat or pig pens to the most elaborate towers and palaces. Because very few ancient Chinese buildings have survived intact, these models, along with descriptions from ancient texts, give a good representation of what the buildings might have looked like. Burial figurines of graceful dancers, mystical beasts, and everyday objects reveal both how people in early China approached death and how they lived. Since people viewed the afterlife as an extension of worldly life, these figurines, called mingqi, sometimes referred as “spirit utensils” or “vessels of ghosts” disclose details of routine existence and provide insights into belief systems over a thousand-year period. For the first time in Chinese history, we have images of rural and daily life during the Han in the form of contemporary records...