Lot 3233.  A rare large carved Qingbai vase, meiping, Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279); 12 5/8 in. (32.1 cm.) high. Estimate HK$2,000,000 - HK$3,000,000 ($259,145 - $388,718). Price Realized HK$9,040,000 ($1,171,064). © Christie's Image Ltd 2014

The vase is well potted with a long slender body rising from the countersunk base to rounded shoulders, surmounted by a ribbed neck tapering to a lipped rim. It is crisply carved on the exterior with a broad band of scrolling tendrils between double borders, all under a translucent glaze of pale aquamarine tone pooling in the recesses, ending in an irregular line above the foot exposing the white biscuit body. 

Note: Starting from the early Northern Song dynasty, kilns at Jingdezhen achieved success in producing very fine white-bodied porcelain covered with an illuminous glaze of icy blue tinge, earning the name qingbai, 'blue white', oryingqing, 'shadow blue'. The exquisite quality of qingbai porcelain was widely recognised, and the Southern Song ceramic historian Jiang Qi mentioned in his treatise Tao ji (Ceramic Records) that white porcelain produced at Jingdezhen was so refined and pure that it was known as Raoyu, 'jade of Rao'. Raozhou was the name of the region in which the Jingdezhen kilns were located. The shape and decorations on qingbai wares were often fashioned after contemporaneous silver wares, and the current meiping is no exception. A silver meiping carved with ruyi-shaped scrolls, excavated in a Southern Song hoard in Sichuan, for example, was possibly an inspiration for the design of the current vase. The silver vase is illustrated in S. Kwan, 'Tixi wenyang fenqi chuyi', Proceedings of Conference on Ancient Chinese Lacquer, Hong Kong, 2012, p. 65, fig. 11.

Qingbai vases of similar shape and design are in the collection of important museums and institutions. An almost identical example was in the Qing Court Collection, now in the Beijing Palace Museum, illustrated in Porcelain of the Song Dynasty (II), The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 167. Two other examples of varying sizes, one with a height of 26 cm. in the Sichuan Chongqing Museum, the other with a height of 35.1 cm. in the Shaanxi Provincial Museum, are illustrated in Song Yuan qingbai ci, Zhongguo taoci quanji, vol. 16, Kyoto, 1984, pls. 20 and 101. Another example with broader shoulders, registered as an Important Art Object in Japan, is illustrated in Mayuyama Seventy Years, vol. 1, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 450. A slightly shorter example (28.6 cm. high) in the Idemitsu Collection is illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, pl. 423. One is in the Meiyintang Collection, see R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 1, London, p. 325, no. 606. Another vessel that is very close to the current vase, but with a cover that flares out at the lower edge, is in the Chang Foundation, Taipei and illustrated in Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1990, pp. 154-5, no. 58. Another example in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum, New York, is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 11, New York, Tokyo, 1982, pl. 59.

Christie's. The Sound of Jade and the Shadow of a Chrysanthemum, Hong Kong, 28 May 2014