Hi William

Welcome to the forum. I can't really help you but someone who can will be along soon.

May I ask, did you put the pads on the base?

Julia

The oil spots look very regular, like something applied with a grid. Also there are two notorious fake signs present: the felt pads, as noticed by Julia, and damages on the foot rim (the most likely place for real damages would be the thinner mouth rim). Surely someone can tell you more about your item. 

Thanks for the response.  The felt pads were applied by me since it sits on a antique table.  Interesting comments regarding the ‘spots’ & I was inspired to get my 10x loupe for a closer look. The spots do not sit on surface of the glaze on close inspection but seem to be sandwiched between the black/brown layer and the clear surface.  Also, the spots do not completely cover the surface of the pot, but fade out in various sections of the glaze.  As someone who has done a bit of stenciling over the years, my experience is that applying a stencil to a curved surface to achieve the spotting effect would be rather difficult.  It would be most hard to avoid overlapping spots as the stencil is moved.

Ok, so the felt pads as a fake sign can be dropped 😂 Sorry I can’t say more about your bottle, but someone else surely can. 

Have you seen a similar vase with this shape of neck ? It is very unusual, which makes me think this could possibly be Japanese , or something else.

From the base , there seems to be little wear on the footrim, which you would expect on something ancient, and the way the glaze stops very evenly near the foot also does not look typical for very old Chinese pieces. 

This shape was typically used in the Song/Jin era for liquid storage (typically alcohol).  The unusual shape of the neck is configured for a cork secured with twine.  I have attached a photo of a another example of this type of bottle in the V&A.  I still feel the vital clues to my piece are in the foot rim.  Does the shape of the foot rim match period Jin examples, is the clay used in my bottle match up with known Song/Jin kilns?  If only someone could flip over a genuine piece and snap a photo of the bottom!

Just came across this recently sold auction item.  This large oil spot bottle example went for $2500 after 27 bids. Two things I noticed about this example are the very irregular spots & the white rim on the base and top.  These things are popping up everywhere.

My first thought on seeing this was that it might be a Japanese Sake bottle, but I don't know enough about those or Jin dynasty wares to really enter this discussion.

It is frustrating when bases aren't shown, but Peter does have a good section on bases on this site - it may be useful? Or you could lay him for an appraisal, or send photos to one of the big auction houses.

My feeling is that these is quite a difference in shape between yours and the one you just posted, which of course, may be irrelevant; and for some reason, I think there may be a flat base, no foot rim, on those wares. I could be imagining that, but will see if I can find anything.

The only other thing I would say, is that the similarly glazed Chinese items I have seen, have a thinning of the glaze at the upper rim/opening.  Yours doesn't appear to have that.

I have spent a pleasant time looking for similar items but nothing came up. The mouth on yours looks longer than anything chinese that I saw. Similarly glazed items didn't have that neat glaze line and although I found a base photo, there were strong differences, but obviously that may not be a like for like comparison. Yours does look very clean, smooth and tidy.

I did realise why I was thinking of a flat base, your item reminds me of old European mineral water bottles that I used to collect. 😊 

Sorry, I haven't been very helpful.

I spent yesterday exploring museum web sites looking for similar examples that might show foot details.  I have to confess I was hoping to find only one type of foot on these bottles (flat base or recessed base).  No such luck!  There were examples of both types.  Also, since these were common storage bottles there are numerous variations on a theme regarding overall shape.  Attached is an example of the recessed base with deep foot rim in the Freer Gallery and the other is in the Ashmolean Museum.   Thank you BidAmount.

 By the way, I don’t have a good feeling regarding the bottle with the white lip & base (see previous post).  The glaze on these types of black ware are always quite thick and do not thin out to clear at the edges. Also, if the white areas are the white paste of the body, then that is totally wrong for the Song/Jin/Yuan examples.

Julia, thanks for sticking with me on this thread.  I want to pass on some additional information regarding these black wares from the best reference work on the subject. “Hare’s Fur, Tortoiseshell, and Partridge Feathers; Chinese Brown- and Black-Glazed Ceramics, 400-1400” by Robert D. Mowry published in 1996.

According to the book, my bottle would fall in the category of “Cizhou-Type monochrome-glazed wares” with an opaque grey stoneware body.  The glaze on my piece is some variation of an oil-spot glaze.  The bottle is definitely hand thrown with little attempt at fine finish.  There are numerous small glaze flaws/rough spots.  It looks to be the product of a commercial kiln producing utilitarian items.  I photographed the best side of the piece.  The tiny spots on my vessel do not look like the typical ‘oil spot’ glazes found on the classic Jin tea bowls that have been treasured in Japan since they were originally imported.  

Nothing that I have read or seen has given any indication that oil-spot glazes would be applied to larger utilitarian or commercial products such as my vessel.  I have only seen tea bowls with this glaze and I only actually have ever handled a very small example (under 3” diameter).  According to Mowry, this oil spot effect on tea bowls was achieved by first coating the bowl in a layer of dark brown glaze.  After it had dried, it was dipped in a more concentrated solution of the same iron-rich glaze.  Finally, “a solution containing additional iron compounds was brushed on the surface of each bowl before firing to ensure the formation of oil spots.  

These types of bottles were never considered worthy of collection by the Chinese of the period.  It would  be as silly as inviting someone over today to view a nice collection of empty gin & whiskey bottles.  However, these early utilitarian items started appearing in the antiques market in the first part of the 20th century as they were literally ‘dug up’ because of expanded public works projects.  This same type of economic expansion (dams, roads, entire cities) started again in the 1990s and released a huge amount antiquities of the Han, Tang, Song and Yuan periods.  Prices collapsed for everything that wasn’t    exceptional or rare, so thousand year old items became affordable to mid-level collectors.  My bottle was purchased during that era of excessive inventory for these types of antiquities.  Because I had my doubts, it has always stayed in the ‘questionable’ pile instead of the ‘for sure’ pile.

For some strange reason, in the past couple of months I have seen these larger vessels with oil spot glazes  start cycling though major & regional auction houses.  Did they really exist in the Song/Jin/Yuan era or are they recent products of potters looking to cash in on expanding demand?  The only for sure answer to my question regarding age would be a TL test which would cost two or three times the original cost of the piece.

At this point, I think I am content to leave it in the ‘questionable’ pile!

Well, if you ever find out, let us know. 🙂 It would cost nothing to send the photos to Christies etc.  They usually provide email addresses for their experts, you just pick whoever you think would be the person to ask.