SOUTHERN SONG DYNASTY (1127-1279)

The shape and decorations on qingbai wares were often fashioned after contemporaneous silver wares, and the current meiping is no exception. A silver meiping carved with ruyi-shaped scrolls, excavated in a Southern Song hoard in Sichuan, for example, was possibly an inspiration for the design of the current vase. The silver vase is illustrated in S. Kwan, 'Tixi wenyang fenqi chuyi', Proceedings of Conference on Ancient Chinese Lacquer, Hong Kong, 2012, p. 65, fig. 11.