A Fine and Rare Blue and White Meiping. Mark and Period of Yongzheng - Photo Sotheby's

the rounded sides elegantly rising from a slightly bulging rounded base and a straight foot to a short waisted neck below a lipped rim, deftly painted around the exterior in shades of cobalt with large undulating foliate stems issuing serrate leaves, furled amid a dense network of smaller curling twigs and scrolls, all between a double line border repeated under the mouth rim, the base inscribed with a six-character mark within double circles in underglaze blue; 24.2 cm., 9 1/2 in. Estimation: 5,000,000 - 7,000,000 HKD

PROVENANCE: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 5th November 1996, lot 805.

NOTE DE CATALOGUE: This elegant vase represents the Yongzheng emperor’s passion for classic styles of the past, his taste for exacting contemporary design and his insistence on outstanding quality. The Yongzheng emperor took a keen interest in the work of various imperial manufactories in his empire, particularly the production of the Jingdezhen imperial kilns, and artistic direction was led by his personal taste. By fine-tuning shapes to harmonious proportions, developing sophisticated designs, and taking best works of the past as standards to aspire to, together with his brilliant kiln supervisor, Tang Ying, he achieved a distinctive style and refinement unmatched in any other period. 

The present vase may be regarded as an echo of a famous Ming doucai bottle painted with scrolling fronds, such as one from the Qing Court collection and still in Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelains in Polychrome and Contrasting Colours, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 60. While the Ming vase is of pear shape, it similarly takes a secondary scrolling motif and places it as the primary decorative motif. The Yongzheng craftsman has created a highly contemporary design by infusing the scroll with a featheriness that is characteristic of Western scrolling fronds, indicative of the artistic and cultural exchange of his time. A closely related example from the Shorenstein collection, was sold three times in our rooms and most recently at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1st December 2010, lot 2966; another was sold in these rooms, 15th May 1990, lot 138; and a third example, but against a yellowenamelled ground, is published in John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, Geneva, 1999, pl. 209.
A Yongzheng ovoid vase similarly decorated with the typically secondary motif of scrolling clouds, but in the doucai palette, was sold in these rooms, 8th April 2010, lot 1862, where Regina Krahl notes that the ‘eccentric, almost completely abstract design is most characteristic of the taste of the Yongzheng emperor, who was a somewhat eccentric personality himself’ (p. 212).

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. Hong Kong | 09 oct. 2012 www.sothebys.com