拍賣筆記 vol.434 蘇富比香港2026：北宋磁州白地剔黑彩牡丹紋撇口瓶，岡田博物館 - Sotheby’s Hong Kong 2026, A Cizhou Sgraffiato 'Peony' Vase, Northern Song Dynasty
- SACA
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
這類磁州窯瓶子體量偏小，卻恰好適合茶室尺度，一般茶室使用的瓶子大概在35cm左右，雖然這件21cm，但也符合茶室使用標準，適用於較為謙遜的場合。近數年，同類器在收藏與展覽中明顯升溫，除常見白地黑花、白地黑掻落外，綠釉系統——如岡田美術館所藏北宋「綠釉白掻落牡丹唐草紋瓶」一類——亦開始被單獨視為稀見品種，市場認知隨之擴展。
值得注意的是，與此批器物相關的過往傳承往往止於某些古董商或所謂「低調藏家」。壺中居、岡田美術館等機構對更早的遞藏、展覽與流通環節多不予詳述。這種做法常被表述為「低調」或「尊重藏家隱私」，實則更接近古董業長期慣用的貨源保護與商業保密：在來源尚未被充分文獻化之前，資訊本身即構成競爭壁壘。這絕非道德上的高尚選擇，而是交易結構使然。墓前不能排除這場拍賣的壺中居經手器物有更早的日本或歐美收藏、展覽紀錄，只是被刻意隱瞞。
正如 SACA 學會此前指出，古代藝術品市場正從「封閉流通的資產配置」轉向「可被公開檢驗的歷史物件」。未來的溢價，將越來越少來自隱匿來源所製造的稀缺感，而更多來自完整的資訊鏈條：遞藏、著錄、展覽與研究如何把一件器物重新放回其原產時代的審美與使用語境，並說明它在後世——尤其是日本茶道與近現代東洋陶瓷收藏史中——如何被再詮釋。唯有透過可核對的傳承與展覽，提出新的歷史審美解讀、釐清其影響與位置，藏品才能從商品身分轉為文明見證，這也將是未來獲得可持續溢價的主要途徑。
很明顯，岡田和壺中居都沒有理解或尊重這個轉變。對於這批器物來說，無疑提供了一個低估的機會，若能挖掘出新傳承，溢價是必然的。知道傳承故意隱瞞，這無疑也是一種自殺式的拍賣。
北宋 磁州白地剔黑彩牡丹紋撇口瓶
A rare Cizhou sgraffiato 'peony' vase, Northern Song dynasty
Session begins in
2026 September 4, 02:00 PM HKT
Estimate
400,000 - 800,000 HKD
Description
Japanese double wood box
21.6 cm
Condition Report
Minor restoration to the mouth rim, and to a small area on the neck above the peony bloom. General surface wear.
口沿有修。瓶頸一小處（於牡丹花上方）見潤飾。正常器面磨痕。
來源
壺中居，東京
本品器形挺拔優雅，撇口，長頸，圓腹，高圈足外撇。通體施白地剔黑彩牡丹紋，黑白對比強烈，紋飾流暢生動，花朵豐腴，枝葉蔓延，與器身之優美曲線相得益彰，實為北宋磁州窰之珍罕佳作。磁州窰之剔花工藝極考驗匠人功力，製作難度甚高。其技法乃先於胎體敷施白地化妝土，俟其半乾後再罩一層黑褐彩。隨後，匠人需以利刃剔去紋飾以外之黑彩，露出白色地子，使牡丹主體紋飾以黑彩醒目呈現。花蕊、葉脈等細節則以尖銳工具於黑彩上劃出，最後罩以透明釉入窰燒製。此過程需精準拿捏力度，剔刻時既要乾淨俐落，又不能用力過猛而傷及底層白地，足見工匠技藝之高超與用心。
參考一例極為相似之北宋磁州窰白地剔黑彩牡丹紋瓶，先後為廣島晃甫及東京壺中居舊藏，後於2018年9月13日紐約佳士得拍賣售出，拍品編號809。
其他重要博物館藏品中亦可見數例：東京松岡美術館藏有一例，錄於《東洋陶磁名品圖錄》，東京，1984年，編號23；另見三上次男編，《世界陶磁全集》，卷13，東京，1981年，頁238，編號229，其器形及紋飾相近，惟腹部較圓。此類紋飾亦見於綠釉器，如安宅舊藏一件比例極為相近之磁州窰綠釉剔花瓶，載於《安宅舊藏舊中國陶磁名品展》，大阪，1972年，編號21。另可比較三藩市亞洲藝術博物館藏一例，器腹較扁，見賀利著，《Chinese Ceramics: A New Comprehensive Survey》，紐約，1996年，圖版319。
These Cizhou bottles are modest in scale, yet that modest scale is precisely what makes them workable in a tea room. They do not dominate the space, and their slipped, carved, or iron-painted surfaces align with the tea aesthetic that values restraint, tactility, and the look of ordinary rather than courtly wares. In recent years this type has gained marked visibility among collectors and in exhibitions. Alongside the better-known white-slip black-painted and sgraffito examples, green-glazed pieces—typified by works such as the Northern Song green-glazed white-sgraffito peony-scroll bottle in the Okada Museum of Art—are now treated as a distinct and relatively scarce group, and market recognition has widened accordingly.
What remains thinly documented is earlier provenance. Institutions and dealers associated with this group, including Kochukyo and the Okada Museum, have generally declined to publish fuller accounts of pre-modern or early modern ownership, exhibition, and trade. The practice is often described as discretion, or as respect for private collectors. In structural terms it is closer to the antique trade’s long-standing habit of protecting sources: so long as an object’s history is not fully written into the public record, information itself remains a commercial asset. That is not a lofty ethic; it is a function of the market. It is still possible that some of these vessels have earlier Japanese or Western collecting and exhibition histories. The point is that those histories have not yet been made verifiable.
As SACA has argued in earlier essays, the market for ancient art is moving from closed circulation as an asset class toward objects that can be tested as historical evidence. Future premiums are less likely to rest on scarcity created by withheld origins, and more likely to rest on a continuous chain of information: how ownership, publication, exhibition, and research return a vessel to the aesthetic and functional world in which it was made, and how later cultures—especially the Japanese tea tradition and modern East Asian ceramic collecting—repositioned it. Only through documented transmission and exhibition can a new historical reading be proposed and an object’s influence and place be clarified. That shift, from commodity to witness of civilization, is the most durable path to added value.
Provenance
Kochukyo Co., Ltd, Tokyo.
Catalogue Note
The Cizhou sgraffiato technique displayed on this vase was remarkably difficult to execute successfully and required immense precision. The process involved covering the vessel with a white slip, which, after drying, was overlaid with a dark brown slip. The artisan then skilfully carved away the negative space of the design to reveal the white ground beneath, leaving the bold peony motif in striking dark contrast. Finer details, such as the veins of the petals and leaves, were carefully incised through the dark slip using a sharp tool. Finally, the vessel was covered in a colourless, transparent glaze and fired. The decorator had to employ great dexterity and care when cutting away the background, as it was crucial not to carve too deeply and inadvertently remove the pale slip along with the dark.
A very similar Cizhou sgraffiato vase of comparable form and decoration, formerly in the collection of Hiroshima Koho and later handled by Kochukyo, Tokyo, was sold at Christie's New York, 13th September 2018, lot 809.
For other related examples in important museum collections, see a vase in the Matsuoka Museum of Art, Tokyo, illustrated in Selected Masterpieces of Oriental Ceramics, Tokyo, 1984, no. 23; and another of similar form and decoration but with a more rounded body, published in Tsugio Mikami, Sekai Toji Zenshu [Ceramic Art of the World], vol. 13, Tokyo, 1981, p. 238, no. 229. The present design was also executed with a green glaze, such as a Cizhou sgraffiato vase of very similar proportions in the Ataka Collection, illustrated in Masterpieces of Old Chinese Ceramics from Ataka Collection, Osaka, 1972, cat. no. 21. Compare also an example with a more compressed body in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated by He Li in Chinese Ceramics: A New Comprehensive Survey, New York, 1996, no. 319.
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