Yuan dynasty blue-and-white porcelain ranks among the most coveted ceramics in the world. Within this already rare field exists an even smaller group known to collectors as the “ten great jars”: a handful of mid‑14th‑century vessels painted with narrative scenes from famous Yuan plays.
One of them became a market legend in 2005, when the Guiguzi Descending the Mountain jar sold at Christie's London for almost £15.7 million, setting an auction record for Asian art at the time. Most of the group is now in museum collections; only two remain in major Asian private collections.
This season, to mark its 40th anniversary in Asia, Christie’s is bringing one of those two back to market. The jar, formerly in the British Rail Pension Fund collection, was last seen at Christie's Hong Kong in 2005 before entering the celebrated Ai Lian Tang Collection. It now returns as the star lot of a single‑owner sale on 30 April, following the success of last autumn’s instalment.
Also headlining Christie's Asian Art Week is a rare pair of gilt-bronze luohan figures depicting monks of different ages, anchoring the regular Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art Sale. A sleek zitan qin table, long admired by connoisseurs, will lead the Chinese Classical Furniture from the Shitou Shuwu Collection sale.
Christie’s Asian Art Week preview in Hong Kong
Lot 804 | An important magnificent blue and white ‘jinxiang ting’ narrative jar | The Ai Lian Tang Collection
Yuan dynasty (1279-1368)
Height: 27.4 cm
Provenance:
- Sold at Sotheby's New York, 23 October 1976, lot 242
- The British Rail Pension Fund collection
- Sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, Important Chinese Porcelain, Enamels and Jade Carvings from the Works of Art Collection of The British Rail Pension Fund, 16 May 1989, lot 12
- The Property of a Gentleman; sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 November 2005, lot 1403
Sale: The Ai Lian Tang Collection - 800 Years of Chinese Ceramics
Estimate on request
Yuan zaju drama represented one of imperial China's greatest literary movements – the popular entertainment of its era that filled city stages and private banquet halls with tales of romance, betrayal, and devotion.
These four-act spectacles combined songs, dance, poetic dialogue, vernacular speech, and martial arts, drawing from legends already familiar to audiences. The ten narrative jars draw their scenes from the most celebrated of these stories, among them The Romance of the Western Chamber and the historical Three Visits to the Thatched Cottage.
Painted on this jar is a scene from Jinxiang Ting (The Pavilion of Fragrant Brocades) – its title inscribed above the pavilion doorway – a love story between the scholar Chen Gui and the beautiful Meng Yuemei, set against the turmoil of the An Lushan Rebellion in the Tang dynasty as war closes in around them.
The couple meet in the Meng family garden, fall in love at first sight, and pledge themselves at the Pavilion of Fragrant Brocades. Her father agrees to the match on the condition that Chen first pass the imperial examinations in the capital. Chen succeeds, but promptly offends the powerful general An Lushan and is exiled to a distant posting. Despairing of ever seeing Yuemei again, he marries another woman he meets on the journey.
As the rebellion erupts, Yuemei’s father also incurs An Lushan’s wrath, and the Meng family is scattered. Yuemei escapes with her maid but is later sold into the household of the celebrated general Guo Ziyi as a singer. When Guo learns her story, he arranges her return to Chen, and the couple finally marries. For contemporary audiences, Guo was already famed as the general who helped suppress the uprising, so his act of kindness would have seemed entirely natural.
The flourishing of zaju drama in the Yuan dynasty was closely tied to the politics of the period. Court elites were enthusiastic patrons, while repeated suspensions of the civil service examinations blocked many educated men from official careers, pushing them instead toward drama and popular literature. When the Ming court later imposed tight controls on zaju in the early 15th century, production of narrative vessels of this kind effectively ceased.
Most of the other nine narrative jars are now in museum collections in China, Japan, and the United States, including the Hengxian Museum in Guangxi, the Idemitsu Museum of Arts in Tokyo, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
This jar has the classic Yuan silhouette: a straight mouth, short neck, broad rounded shoulders, and a full body that tapers to a short, unglazed foot. The decoration is arranged in crisp registers from top to bottom – crashing waves at the neck, scrolling peonies at the shoulder, the narrative scene encircling the belly, and stylised lotus petals at the foot. The scene runs as a continuous horizontal band, designed to be read in the round.
Workshops of the period also produced woodblock‑printed illustrated books that told the stories on which zaju dramas were based. On the celebrated Guiguzi jar, scholars have matched specific figures, poses and costumes directly to surviving woodblock illustrations, suggesting that some porcelain designs were based on images from the same publishers.
A blue and white ‘Guiguzi’ jar | Yuan dynasty | Sold: £15,688,000, Christie’s London, 2005
Guiguzi Descending the Mountain, Yuan dynasty woodblock illustration
Lot 1161 | An exceedingly rare pair of gilt-bronze luohan figures | The Property of a Lady
Early Ming dynasty, 15th century
Height: 79 cm
Provenance:
- Sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1-2 October 1991, lot 1668
Sale: Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art
Estimate: HK$15,000,000 - 20,000,000
Masterfully cast and unusually large, this pair of gilt-bronze luohan figures depicts an older and a younger monk. The older figure wears a Chinese-style robe fastened on the right, with an inscription “left three” on the underside of the left hem. The younger wears an Indian-style robe that leaves his right chest and arm bare, with an inscription “right two” on the underside of the right hem. Both are seated cross-legged, the hems of their robes spilling over the edge of the pedestals.
These inscriptions record their original positions within a temple, where the group would have been arranged to the left and right according to the style of dress. Two further examples, very likely from the same set, are recorded. One, in Chinese-style robes and inscribed “left six”, was sold at Christie’s New York in 2024; its original gilding survives only in traces.
The other, in Indian-style robes and inscribed “right nine”, appeared at Christie’s Hong Kong in 2016 with an estimate of HK$5 million, and went on to fetch HK$34 million when it was acquired by the Tsz Shan Monastery Buddhist Art Museum in Hong Kong.
A gilt-bronze luohan figure | Song/Yuan dynasty | Sold: HK$34,140,000, Christie's Hong Kong, 2016
Close-up of the older monk
Close-up of the young monk
Although the luohan derives from the arhats of Indian Buddhist scripture, arhats were not themselves objects of devotion in ancient India. The cult of the luohan is indigenous to China, formed as Buddhism adapted to local beliefs.
In 654, the monk Xuanzang translated the Nandimitravadana, a text on the Sixteen Arhats. It provided a theological foundation for the luohan cult and helped establish them as objects of worship – yet it gave almost no description of their appearance, leaving artists with enormous freedom to develop a wide range of images.
Luohan devotion reached its height in the Song period, when tales of their miracles spread widely and were eagerly promoted by the literati. From the imperial family to ordinary townspeople, people prayed to the luohan for rain and good weather, health and long life, success in the examinations and official career, and the salvation of the dead – almost every aspect of life could be brought before them.
In 2022, Christie’s Hong Kong sold a related pair of gilt-bronze luohan figures, dated to the Yuan to early Ming dynasty and very close in size to the present works, for HK$24.45 million, twice the estimate. Cast with legs pendent rather than cross-legged, that pair is now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.
A pair of gilt-bronze luohan figures | Yuan to early Ming dynasty | Sold: HK$24,450,000, Christie's Hong Kong, 2022
"Left Three" on the elder monk’s robe hem (top); "Right Two" on the younger monk’s robe hem (bottom)
Lot 1008 | A rare zitan scroll-form low qin table
16th-17th century
35 x 162 x 45 cm
Provenance:
- Grace Wu Bruce, Hong Kong
Sale: Chinese Classical Furniture from the Shitou Shuwu Collection
Estimate: HK$10,000,000 - 15,000,000
Balanced in line and proportion, this understated yet strikingly modern scroll‑form qin table embodies the pinnacle of literati aesthetics. Among the four elegant pursuits of the Chinese literati – music, chess, calligraphy and painting – the qin always came first. Carved from solid zitan, its wave‑like contours evoke the gentle rippling of the famous guqin piece Flowing Water, while its unadorned form express refinement and restraint.
Having passed through the hands of Grace Wu Bruce, one of the foremost authorities on classical Chinese furniture, the table has been prominently featured in her publications and long admired by connoisseurs as a peerless work. Since the 1990s, it has belonged to the Shitou Shuwu Collection and has been exhibited only once, in the 1999 exhibition Splendor of Style: Classical Furniture from the Ming and Qing Dynasties at the National Museum of History in Taipei.
Unseen on the market for decades, it comes to Christie’s Hong Kong this season as part of Chinese Classical Furniture from the Shitou Shuwu Collection, a dedicated single‑owner sale of 25 pieces.
The present table at Splendor of Style: Classical Furniture from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, National Museum of History, Taipei, 1999
Among Taiwan’s collectors of Chinese art, the owner of the Shitou Shuwu Collection is distinctive for having established a publishing house whose titles have become important references. Rooted in a long‑standing enthusiasm for classical Chinese painting and calligraphy, his interests gradually expanded to include the literature, opera and material culture of the same period, as well as Ming‑style furniture.
From the 1990s onwards, working closely with leading dealers at a time when many exceptional pieces were surfacing, he assembled a group of furnishings – tables, chairs, bookshelves, scholars’ chests and others – ideally suited to a refined studio interior, among them this rare zitan scroll‑form low qin table.
Reflecting on its beauty, the collector recalls: “I once believed that such unadorned poise and elegance belonged only to huanghuali furniture – until I was shown a zitan qin table. In deep purplish‑black zitan, the table takes the simplest possible form, yet its gently curved legs and restrained, turning contours create a quiet refinement. Entirely plain and unembellished – without a trace of carving – it naturally evokes the still, solemn presence of the guqin itself.”
25 pieces from the Shitou Shuwu Collection will be offered at a dedicated single-owner sale at Christie's Hong Kong this season
Other Highlight Lots:
Lot 820 | A fine and very rare pair of celadon-ground famille rose 'pheasant and deer' vases | The Ai Lian Tang Collection
Qianlong six-character seal marks in underglaze blue and of the period (1736-1795)
Height: 30.4 and 30 cm
Provenance:
- The Liddell Collection, no. 180
- Collection of Mrs. Charles Oswald Liddell, Pinehurst, North Carolina
- Sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 20-21 May 1980, lot 256
- Chang Foundation, Taipei, acquired before 1996
Sale: The Ai Lian Tang Collection - 800 Years of Chinese Ceramics
Estimate: HK$9,000,000 - 13,000,000
Lot 1004 | A rare and important huanghuali horseshoe-back ‘grand master's’ chair and huanghuali footstool
17th century
Chair: 112.5 x 77 x 71 cm
Stool: 17 x 58.5 x 36 cm
Provenance:
Chair:
- The Jingguantang Collection
- Sold at Christie’s New York, The Jingguantang Collection Part II, 20 March 1997, lot 10
Stool:
- The Jingguantang Collection
- Sold at Christie’s New York, The Jingguantang Collection Part II, 20 March 1997, lot 11
Sale: Chinese Classical Furniture from the Shitou Shuwu Collection
Estimate: HK$6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Lot 1111 | A rare and impressive large white-glazed jar and a cover
Sui dynasty (581-618)
Height: 33.3 cm
Provenance:
- Acquired in Japan in 1988
Sale: Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art
Estimate: HK$5,500,000 - 8,000,000
Lot 803 | A magnificent and extremely rare cizhou sgraffito 'peony' jar | The Ai Lian Tang Collection
Northern Song dynasty (960-1127)
Height: 27.6 cm
Provenance:
- Toguri Museum of Art Collection, Tokyo
- Sold at Sotheby's London, 100 Selected Chinese and Korean Ceramics from The Toguri Collection, 9 June 2004, lot 62 (cover lot)
Sale: The Ai Lian Tang Collection - 800 Years of Chinese Ceramics
Estimate: HK$5,500,000 - 6,500,000
Lot 818 | A fine and exceptionally rare blue and white ‘nine dragon’ vase | The Ai Lian Tang Collection
Qianlong six-character seal mark in underglaze blue and of the period (1736-1795)
Height: 35.7 cm
Provenance:
- The Property of an English Collector; sold at Christie’s London, 11 July 2006, lot 142
Sale: The Ai Lian Tang Collection - 800 Years of Chinese Ceramics
Estimate: HK$5,000,000 - 6,500,000
Lot 813 | A fine and rare moulded peachbloom-glazed ‘chrysanthemum’ vase | The Ai Lian Tang Collection
Kangxi six-character mark in underglaze blue and of the period (1662-1722)
Height: 21.2 cm
Provenance:
- Chang Foundation, Taipei, acquired before 1990
Sale: The Ai Lian Tang Collection - 800 Years of Chinese Ceramics
Estimate: HK$4,500,000 - 6,500,000
Lot 1171 | An exceptionally rare archaic jade carving of a tiger | Property from a Private Collection
Late Eastern Han dynasty
Length: 9.5 cm
Provenance:
- Acquired in Hong Kong, 1997
Sale: Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art
Estimate: HK$3,500,000 - 5,500,000
Lot 1002 | A huanghuali tielimu-inset waistless flush-corner-leg side table with ‘giant’s arm’ braces
17th century
82.5 x 145.5 x 61 cm
Provenance:
- Grace Wu Bruce, Hong Kong
Sale: Chinese Classical Furniture from the Shitou Shuwu Collection
Estimate: HK$2,500,000 - 3,000,000
Lot 801 | A ding persimmon-glazed hexafoil bowl | The Ai Lian Tang Collection
Northern Song dynasty (960-1127)
Diameter: 20.1 cm
Provenance:
- Chang Foundation, Taipei, prior to 1990
Sale: The Ai Lian Tang Collection - 800 Years of Chinese Ceramics
Estimate: HK$1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Lot 819 | A fine and very rare green-enamelled and famille rose ‘dragon fish’-handled bottle vase | The Ai Lian Tang Collection
Qianlong six-character seal mark in iron red and of the period (1736-1795)
Height: 23.3 cm
Provenance:
- Collection of Edward T. Chow (1910-1980)
- Sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, The Edward T. Chow Collection- Part One, 25 November 1980, lot 175
- Property from a Private Collection; sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 30 April 1996, lot 501
Sale: The Ai Lian Tang Collection - 800 Years of Chinese Ceramics
Estimate: HK$800,000 - 1,200,000
Lot 1134 | A dehua figure of Guanyin
Late Ming dynasty, 16th-early 17th century, impressed he chaozong square mark
Height: 28.9 cm
Provenance:
- C.T. Loo, Paris, according to label
- A French private collection
Sale: Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art
Estimate: HK$800,000 - 1,000,000
Lot 1107 | A sancai and blue-glazed pottery figure of a seated lion | Property of a Lady
Tang dynasty (618-907)
Height: 13.8 cm
Provenance:
- Acquired in Japan in 1992
Sale: Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art
Estimate: HK$500,000 - 1,000,000
Lot 1109 | A jun sky-blue glazed bowl | Property of a Lady
Northern Song - Jin dynasty (960-1234)
Diameter: 10.8 cm
Provenance:
- Sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 3 June 2015, lot 3202
Sale: Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art
Estimate: HK$500,000 - 800,000
Lot 1021 | A zitan mallow-form box and cover
18th-19th century
Diameter: 8 cm
Provenance:
- Grace Wu Bruce, Hong Kong
Sale: Chinese Classical Furniture from the Shitou Shuwu Collection
Estimate: HK$150,000 - 200,000
Lot 1173 | A russet jade figure of a boy and lotus | The Property of an Important Asian Collector
Song dynasty (960-1279)
Height: 6.4 cm
Sale: Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art
Estimate: HK$150,000 - 250,000
Lot 1019 | A silver-inlaid lobed zitan brush pot
18th century
Height: 16.5 cm
Provenance:
- Grace Wu Bruce, Hong Kong
Sale: Chinese Classical Furniture from the Shitou Shuwu Collection
Estimate: HK$120,000 - 180,000
Auction Details:
Auction House: Christie's Hong Kong
Sale: The Ai Lian Tang Collection - 800 Years of Chinese Ceramics
Date and Time: 30 April 2026 | 10:30 am (Hong Kong local time)
Sale: Chinese Classical Furniture from the Shitou Shuwu Collection
Date and Time: 30 April 2026 | 11:15 am (Hong Kong local time)
Sale: Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art
Date and Time: 30 April 2026 | 3:15 pm (Hong Kong local time)
Auction Preview: 23-29 April 2026 | 10:30 am - 6 pm
Venue: 6/F, The Henderson, 2 Murray Road, Central, Hong Kong