Lot 2704. From the Wang Xing Lou Collection. A fine and rare Ge-type penta-lobed bottle vase, Yongzheng six-character seal mark in underglaze blue and of the period (1723-1735); 27.7 cm high., box. Price realised HKD 5,292,000 (Estimate HKD 1,000,000 – HKD 2,000,000). © Christie's Image Ltd 2024

Provenance: Berwald Oriental Art, London, prior to 2003.

Literature: Ye Peilan and J. Thompson, Imperial Perfection: The Palace Porcelain of Three Chinese Emperors, Kangxi- Yongzheng- Qianlong, A Selection from The Wang Xing Lou Collection, Hong Kong, 2004, pp. 208-209, no. 79.

Exhibited: On loan to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2003-2020.

Note: The glaze on the present vase is based on that of Song-dynasty Ge ware, one of the ‘five famous wares of the Song dynasty’. Song-dynasty wares were highly admired by the Yongzheng emperor, a keen antiquarian who collected and studied material from earlier dynasties. The Yongzheng emperor is recorded to have specifically ordered that porcelain wares imitating the various stoneware glazes of the Song dynasty be produced at the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen. In fact, the famous kiln director Tang Yin became particularly well-known for the success of these imitation Song wares. Some of the finer imitation wares bear imperial reign marks, as seen on the base of the present vase. The Ge-type glaze on the present vase is extremely successful, achieving the soft pale blueish-grey tone interspersed with the elegant gold and dark-brown crackles. The foot rim is dressed in a dark brown slip, imitating the dark brownish-grey body associated with Ge wares. The current vase exemplifies both the sensitivity and success of the Yongzheng-period potters in imitating the original Song-dynasty prototypes.

Ge-type vase appears to be very rare with the combination of five-lobed form and this size, with only a few almost identical examples, also Yongzheng mark and period, one is in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Selection of Ge Ware: The Palace Museum Collection and Archaeological Discoveries, 2017, pp. 270-271, no. 132; another example that is slightly smaller in size, previously in the collections of Alice Boney and The Irving Collection, was sold at Christie’s New York, 20 March 2019, lot 826; and one formerly in the collections of H.F. Parfitt, and Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Clark, was sold at Sotheby’s London, 25 March 1975, lot 113.

Another Yongzheng-marked example of related form but covered in Guan-type glaze, previously in a French private collection, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 3 December 2021, lot 2914.

Christie's. The Ten Perfections - Qing Imperial Ceramics from the Wang Xing Lou Collection, Hong Kong, 30 may 2024