1. A MAGNIFICENT AND HIGHLY IMPORTANT GE MALLOW-SHAPED BRUSH WASHER Song/Yuan Dynasty Superbly potted with shallow rounded sides rising to a gently everted, flat rim divided by eight indented notches with corresponding eight ribs on the interior and corresponding eight flutes on exterior of the washer, the slightly concave base recessing towards the thickened sides, raised on three stout cabriole legs and covered overall with an unctuous opaque glaze of creamy bluish-grey tone, suffused with an attractive network of fine black crackles and an underlying network of light golden crackles, the underside with eight regularly set spur marks radiating around a central ninth spur mark, each spur mark revealing the dark grey body. With fitted box. 21cm (8 1/4in) diam. Provenance: The property of a Gentleman Christie's Hong Kong, 31 October 1994, lot 528 Sotheby's London, 13 July 2005, lot 149 Collection of Elsa Peretti (1940-2021) Profound Beauty Asaph Hyman Elsa Peretti's genius was the ability to distill forms into timeless creations serving their function. In this Elsa turned to nature for inspiration - a source which surged through her and each of her designs. Like nature taking its time, so did Elsa in her creations, and in her own words: "I am very slow, you all go fast, I don't, this is the secret of me, I go very slowly". The Elsa Peretti Ge brush washer is amongst the rarest extant examples of its type, belonging to one of the Five Great Wares of the Song dynasty, also including Ru, Guan, Ding and Jun. Its exquisite subtle and deceivingly simplistic, yet, in fact, complex naturalistic mallow form, is a masterpiece at the very highest level – one which transcends time. Read More Heirloom Ge-ware Brush Washers in the Collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing Huang Weiwen During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Ge ware was long considered to be one of the great wares of the Song dynasty, and Ge-ware was regarded by connoisseurs and collectors of the time as a fine example of rare Song dynasty ceramics. In modern times, with the advancements in scientific research on ancient ceramics, scholars have unearthed certain discrepancies between historical records, archaeological discoveries, and surviving Ge-ware artifacts. Owing to different interpretations of the available data, for many years researchers were unable to reach a consensus on various aspects of Ge ware, including its conceptual basis, periods of production, kiln site locations, production methods, and its relationship to other wares. Despite these differences of opinion, the Chinese Ceramic Society gave separate listings for 'Ge ware and Di ware', 'Ge-ware and Longquan-ware black-body celadon' and 'Heirloom Ge ware' in their book Zhongguo taoci shi (A History of Chinese Ceramics), published in 1982. Today, the academic community generally considers Heirloom Ge-ware as a category of inherited ceramics characterised by a dark-coloured body, a thick grey-celadon or beige glaze, a smooth and lustrous surface, and a network of crackled patterns of varying sizes and depths. Researchers also widely consider Heirloom Ge-ware ceramics to exhibit the distinctive characteristics of Song dynasty ceramics in terms of shape, body-glaze composition, decoration, and firing techniques. In particular, its artistic style fully embodies the refined and minimalist aesthetics of Song-era porcelain. At present, Heirloom Ge-ware porcelain is primarily found in museums and institutions worldwide such as the Palace Museum, Beijing, the Palace Museum, Taipei, and the Percival David Collection in the British Museum, London, though it can also be found in some private collections. Notably, the collections in the Palace Museums on both sides of the Strait predominantly originate from the former Ming and Qing Imperial Court collections. Not only do these pieces exist in significant quantities, but they also serve as highly representative examples of Heirloom Ge-ware porcelain that fully reflect its stylistic characteristics. Read More Elsa: the person, the designer, the collector. Elsa Peretti was born in Florence on May 1st 1940, the youngest daughter of Maria Luisa Pighini and Ferdinando Peretti, a prominent businessman who founded Anonima Petroli Italiana (A.P.I.), one of Italy's leading oil companies. During childhood Elsa already revealed her innate artistic creativity, driven by a profound curiosity, a deep love of nature and animals, and a strong sense of empathy for those in need, she always used her eyes to observe with the acumen of a scientist and the vision of a sculptor the smallest details that nature offered her. Childhood always marks the creative path of an artist, and Italy and its beauties had a profound influence on the definition of Elsa's aesthetic. However, they were not enough to ignite her creative spark, and at the age of twenty-one, after training in Rome and Switzerland, she left home, leaving behind comfort and wealth for an uncertain future, an act of rebellion filled with courage for a young woman of the time. She made her living as a French teacher and skiing instructor in the Swiss mountains, then pursued a degree in interior design and in 1963 moved to Milan to work with the architect Dado Torrigiani. Read More This magnificent brush washer with its elegant form and subtle, monochromatic glaze is a masterpiece of Southern Song (1127-1279) or early Yuan (1279-1368) dynasty ceramic production. The apparent simplicity of its design, the undulating lines of the rim and sides enveloped in an unctuous, opaque glaze of creamy-grey tone and satiny finish suffused with a complex web of darker and lighter crackles perfectly represents the aesthetics that evolved under the Song and continued into the Yuan dynasty, a direct reflection of an outlook on life that propagated modesty over ostentation and simplicity over complexity. It belongs to a group of ceramics so highly esteemed by successive generations of connoisseurs that they were to influence the ceramics made for the Chinese Imperial Court well into the Qing dynasty. The distinctive glaze with its dense network of two-toned crackles that covers the entire surface of this washer, is a distinguishing feature and identifies this washer as a rare piece of Ge ware (Ge yao), one of the five special types of ceramic wares highly coveted by the Song dynasty Imperial Court and elite and collected by Chinese emperors of succeeding dynasties. Along with Ru ware, Ding ware, Jun ware and Guan ware, Ge ware was ranked one of the 'Five Famous Wares of the Song dynasty' (Song dai wu da mingyao). Each of these five prized wares had its very own characteristics, the glazes distinguished by different colours, textures and surface finishes. While Ru ware had the most luminous intense blue-green glazes, Jun ware the most vivid opaque blue glazes, and Ding ware the finest creamy, white-tinged glazes, Guan and Ge ware shared thick opaque glazes in similar tones ranging from grey and light green to a creamy ivory-grey tone like on the present washer. Glazes on both Guan and Ge ware were deliberately crackled to achieve a fine network of lines. The variation in the colour and the density of the crackles, a direct result of the control of the atmosphere and temperature during the firing process, have traditionally been used to distinguish Guan and Ge ware. The crackled glazes on Ge ware have a visible double matrix of large, dark-stained crackles and a finer underlying network of light brown or golden crackles as this exquisite brush washer perfectly demonstrates. Since the mid 20th century, the term 'iron-wire and golden threads' (jinsi tiexian) has been used to aptly describe the intricate web of two-toned crackles on Ge ware glazes. This terminology is based on the physical appearance of the Ge glaze and does not take into consideration other sources of information such as textual records and archaeological material. Much of the classification of Ge ware is based on the term 'Heirloom Ge ware' and refers to a group of Ge pieces in the Qing Court Collections of the Palace Museums in Beijing and Taipei, many of them inscribed and classified by the Qianlong emperor as Ge ware. Yet today, even with a wealth of recent archaeological material available and intense research in China and the West, there is still much debate on when and where Ge ware was produced.