Lot 3079. A flambé-glazed vase, Incised seal mark and period of Yongzheng; 37.7 cm., 14 7/8 in. Estimate 2,000,000 — 3,000,000 HKD. Lot sold 3,640,000 HKD (342,677 EUR). Photo:Sotheby's

the compressed globular body supported on a slightly flared foot, surmounted by a waisted neck and an everted rim, the neck flanked by a pair of angular strap handles with ruyi-head terminals below a horizontal raised rib collaring the neck, three further ribs encircling the upper and lower bodies respectively, applied overall with a raspberry glaze with unctuous purplish-blue splashes and spots, the underside dressed in a thin coffee-coloured glaze covering the incised four-character seal mark, wood stand.

Provenance: An old Japanese collection.

Note: Vases of this form are extremely rare and only one other example, but of smaller size, appears to have been published, sold twice at Christie's Hong Kong, 27th October 2003, lot 704, and again, 29th May 2013, lot 2107. The stately form is invested with a sense of dynamism through the Jun-inspired vibrant streaky glaze, which adds a dimension of modernity to an archaistic from.

The Yongzheng Emperor is known to have been particularly fond of Jun ware and thus to have commissioned copies of earlier vessels and encouraged the development of new glaze variations based on Jun prototypes. Nine different types of revival Jun glazes in tones of purple, crimson and blue are distinguished in a list of porcelains produced in Jingdezhen that was published in 1732. They were copied from actual Jun vessels which had been sent as samples from the imperial collection in Beijing to the kilns in the south, see Stephen W. Bushell, Oriental Ceramic Art, London, 1981, pp. 194. One of the new varieties was the purple flambé glaze as represented by this piece, with the distinctive streaks and splashes of this glaze described as yao bian (transmutation glaze).

Comparable Yongzheng vases of this form and moulded decoration covered in a flambé glaze, but with a slightly smaller neck and lacking the handles, include two in the Palace Museum, Beijing, one illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Monochrome Porcelain, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 177, the other in Qingdai yuyao ciqi [Imperial ceramics of the Qing dynasty], vol. 1, pt. II, Beijing, 2005, pl. 133; and a third example from the Nanjing Museum, included in the exhibition Qing Imperial Porcelain, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1995, cat. no. 36. A pear-shaped vase of related form, but with a slightly shorter and broader neck, two raised ribs encircling the shoulder and moulded ringed mask handles, is illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1809; and another from the Jingguantang collection was sold twice at Christie's Hong Kong, 3rd November 1996, lot 564, and again, 30th April 2000, lot 596.