A small sancai pottery jarlet

A small sancai pottery jarlet, Tang dynasty, of ovoid form with a twisted over-strung handle, the blue glaze running down to a green and amber colour glaze stopping short of the foot, 7cm high

Ben Janssens Oriental Art (with copy of receipt)

The fact that so many Tang dynasty pottery shapes closely copy a metal form suggests that they were especially produced to accompany the deceased, as it is obvious that such a delightful miniature bucket as the present example could hardly have been intended for practical use. The parallel between ceramics and metal is reinforced here by the application of pottery ‘studs’ that imitate the metal nails that would have been used to hold together the original metal vessel. Three comparable Tang dynasty miniature bronze buckets, similar in size and form, were shown in the exhibition Tin-Bronze of China in the Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art, Izumi, Japan in 1999. It would appear that miniature pottery buckets from this period are exceedingly rare, and most of the known pieces with either monochrome or polychrome glazes have been found in Henan, Hebei, and Shaanxi provinces. A very similar miniature Tang pottery bucket of comparable size and with a twisted handle but applied with only green and brown glazes, is in the collection of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. A further comparable miniature black-glazed pottery bucket of similar size and with an overhead handle, excavated from the Huangbao kiln in Shaanxi province in 1987, is now in the collection of the Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology.