Lot 8. A flambé-glazed vase with handles, Seal mark and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735); 20.4 cm, 8 in. Estimate 3,400,000 - 3,800,000 HKD. Lot sold 6,020,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's 2012

the pear-shaped body with rounded sides tapering to a gently flared lipped rim, the sides set with two simplified bird-head handles suspending fixed rings and joined by a raised fillet, covered overall with a thick glaze of intense crimson-red colour with a large purplish-blue streak transmuting into cream-white on one side, the reverse with a smaller blue patch, the glaze draining to bluish white at the rim and interior of the vase, the rim and handles thinly applied with a transparent brown glaze with streaks of milky blue, the base covered with a transparent light brown glaze with patches of grey and deeply incised with a four-character reign mark.

Provenance: Sotheby's London, 26th April 1966, lot 110.
Collection of N.H.P. Huth.
Collection of Edward T. Chow.

Exhibited: Evolution to Perfection. Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection/Evolution vers la perfection. Céramiques de Chine de la Collection Meiyintang, Sporting d’Hiver, Monte Carlo, 1996, cat. no. 176.

Literature: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 834.

Note: It is extremely rare to find a flambé vase of this form, although one companion piece, also of this size, is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang Qingdai yuyao ciqi [Porcelains from the Qing dynasty imperial kilns in the Palace Museum collection], Beijing, 2005, vol. I, part 2, pl. 139 (fig. 1). 

Flambé-glazed vase with handles, Mark and Period of Yongzheng, Palace Museum, Beijing.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part IV - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains, Hong Kong, 09 oct. 2012