A CHINESE CIZHOU VASE. Yuan Dynasty. The squat ovoid body rising from a recessed base to a short narrow ribbed neck with everted rim with a rare black-glazed mouth, freely painted with floral sprays and geometric bands, all in brown glaze against a cream ground, together with a Japanese wood box, 28cm H. (2) 元 磁州窯瓶 Vases of this type are discussed in Mino, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz’u-chou Type Wares, 960-1600 AD, 1980, p 150 where they are said to derive from the meiping -form vases of the Song Dynasty. For a similar piece in the collection of the British Museum see Hobson, Rackham and King, Chinese Ceramics in Private Collections, 1931, fig 116, p 57.