Two Extremely Rare Famille Rose ‘Heaven and Earth’ Revolving Brushpots, with Qianlong seal marks and dated to the period. Ests. $120/150,000 and $80/120,000. Photo: Sotheby's.

NEW YORK, NY.- On 20 March 2012 Sotheby’s New York will present Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art as part of the Asia Week series of Auctions. The sale includes property from over seventy private collections some of which has not been seen in public for over fifty years. The auction features a wide selection of ceramics, jades and furniture including a number of Imperial works. Overall the sale is estimated to fetch between $11.9/16.8 million, the pre-sale exhibition opened this Friday, 16 March. 

Among the highlights of the sale are two Extremely Rare Famille Rose ‘Heaven and Earth’ Revolving Brushpots, with Qianlong seal marks and dated to the period (ests. $120/150,000 and $80/120,000). Rich with Daoist and cosmological symbolism, only one other pair and two single examples of revolving brushpots from the Qianlong period are known to exist. The creation of revolving and interlocking porcelains represented an astonishing triumph of ingenious design and almost miraculous craftsmanship. The upper part of these two pieces represents Heaven with rainbow colored clouds, while the lower portion, the realm of a dragon - the Emperor – represents Earth. 

An Extremely Rare Famille Rose ‘Heaven and Earth’ Revolving Brushpot. Qianlong Seal Mark And Period. Photo: Sotheby's.

constructed from three parts, with the cylindrical core forming the pot fixed into the lower section, with a revolving upper section, the edges where the upper and lower sections meet decorated with wan-fret bands incorporating the eight trigrams, evenly spaced to allow the trigrams in the upper and lower sections to align and create hexagrams, the upper revolving section painted on opposite sides with a pair of phoenix amidst multi-colored clouds, the lower section painted with a horse carrying sacred scriptures, galloping above turbulent seas from which emerge jagged rocks, two rocks sprouting sprigs of lingzhi and two others with resting tortoises, the parting waves revealing a branch of coral, a 'flaming pearl' and a rhinoceros horn, all against a pale blue enamel feathered-scroll ground executed in imitation sgraffito technique, the sides of the protruding foot and mouth rims decorated with a similar feathered-scroll in gilt against an iron-red ground, the top of the mouth rim finely enameled with a key-fret band, the interior enameled turquoise, the turquoise enameled countersunk base centered with a reserved seal mark in underglaze blue. Height 4 3/4 in., 12.1 cm - Estimate 120,000-150,000 USD 

PROVENANCE: Collection of Mr. George Taber.

Two Extremely Rare Famille Rose ‘Heaven and Earth’ Revolving Brushpots, with Qianlong seal marks and dated to the period. Ests. $120/150,000 and $80/120,000. Photo: Sotheby's.