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1 avril 2015

A rare Ming-style blue and white 'Bird and Flower' vase, yuhuchunping, Mark and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735)

A rare Ming-style blue and white 'Bird and Flower' vase, yuhuchunping, Mark and period of Yongzheng

A rare Ming-style blue and white 'Bird and Flower' vase, yuhuchunping, Mark and period of Yongzheng (another view)

A rare Ming-style blue and white 'Bird and Flower' vase, yuhuchunping, Mark and period of Yongzheng (detail)

A rare Ming-style blue and white 'Bird and Flower' vase, yuhuchunping, Mark and period of Yongzheng (mark)

Lot 119. A rare Ming-style blue and white 'Bird and Flower' vase, yuhuchunping, Mark and period of Yongzheng  (1723-1735);  30 cm., 11 3/4  in.Estimate 3,000,000 — 4,000,000 HKD (342,048 - 456,063 EUR). Lot sold 13,280,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's.

elegantly potted with a voluminous body of generous proportion, painted in a lively style in washes of cobalt accented with 'heaping and piling', with a pair of magpies with handsome plumage, depicted sitting back to back, lovingly turning their heads to face the other, perching on an overhanging leafy branch of peach blossoms, springing from behind a craggy rock surrounded by clusters of bamboo, all beneath an elegantly waisted neck collared by a continuous classic scroll, between pendent trefoils framing the shoulders and upright plantain leaves below the gently everted rim, all above a ring of stylised lotus petals and a flaring foot decorated with further lotus blooms, the recessed base centred with a six-character reign mark enclosed within a double-circle.

NoteThe Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1723-35) is celebrated for his fine artistic taste, his passion for classic porcelain of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), and the fabulous reproductions of these traditional wares he commissioned, where he often introduced elegant innovations. The present vase, which appears to be unique, is a perfect example. It was inspired by an early Ming imperial porcelain design of the Yongle (1403-1424) period, which itself followed court painting styles of the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127), often found in small-format paintings such as fans or album leaves.

The present vase exemplifies how the Yongzheng Emperor had classic early Ming porcelain reproduced. The piece closely follows the design of the famous, unique Yongle yuhuchun vase from the Sir Percival David Collection in the British Museum, London, which may have served as inspiration, illustrated in Ming: 50 Years that Changed China, British Museum, London, 2014, cat. no. 71 (left). However, the Yongzheng vase differs in that its two birds are depicted with crossed tails. This intimate and lovely composition does not seem to be seen on any other early Ming blue and white porcelains, nor on other Qing (1644-1911) copies. The Yongle vase was included alongside a moon flask and a meiping vase of related design, also from the Yongle period, in the exhibition, ibid., cat. no. 71 (centre). 

Court records corroborate that the Yongzheng Emperor did not just blindly copy Ming prototypes, but had them reproduced according to his own tastes. In one case, for example, he had a blue and white bowl of the Jiajing period (1522-1566) reproduced, but with altered decoration, because he did not consider the original painting elegant, see Feng Xianming,Annotated Collection of Historical Documents on Ancient Chinese Ceramics, Taipei, 2000, pp. 210-227. 

Imperial porcelains with comparable subjects of a bird or pair of birds on flowering branches in underglaze blue are extremely rare during the Ming and Qing periods. Only one other yuhuchun vase with such a design appears to be recorded from the Yongzheng reign, but with different positioning of the birds and without reign mark, sold in our London rooms, 16th June 1998, lot 249, and illustrated in Julian Thompson, The Alan Chuang Collection of Chinese Porcelain, Hong Kong, 2009, pl. 33. There is also a Yongzheng yuhuchun vase of the same shape and similar bands of decoration at the neck and base, from the Qing court collection, preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing, decorated with a garden scene as the main motif, illustrated in Geng Baochang ed., Early Ming Blue and White Porcelain of the Palace Museum, Beijing, 2002, cat. nos. 199. 

A Yongzheng version of the Yongle moon flask from the Sir Percival David Collection, painted with one bird on each side, formerly in the collections of Richard de la Mare (1940s to 1974), Su Lin An, and Meiyintang, was sold in our London rooms, 2nd April 1974, lot 369, and twice in these rooms, 31st October 1995, lot 325, and 7th April 2011, lot 76. Another Yongzheng moon flask, with two birds on each side, was sold in our London rooms, 11th December 1990, lot 325, again at Christies’ Hong Kong, 2nd November 1999, lot 521, and is illustrated in An Exhibition of Important Chinese Ceramics from the Robert Chang Collection, London 1993, cat. no. 79, and in Julian Thompson, The Alan Chuang Collection of Chinese Porcelain, Hong Kong, 2009, pl. 34. 

A rare Yongle ewer of related shape in the Ataka collection, painted with a similar subject of birds and branches, is illustrated in The Beauty of Asia Ceramics - from the Collection of the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, 2014, pl. 48. 

The intimate subject of birds on branches was made famous by paintings of the famous artist emperor Huizong (r. 1100-1125) of the Northern Song dynasty. For such a painting attributed to Huizong see Osvald Sirén, Chinese Painting, Leading Masters and Principles, London, 1956, pl. 235. 

While the Yongzheng yuhuchun vase must have been directly inspired by early Ming porcelain, the Yongzheng Emperor probably favoured the bird subjects for other reasons as well. Having ascended the throne under somewhat nebulous circumstances, the legality of his succession was persistently questioned, which made him more than any other Qing emperor receptive of auspicious symbolism, and a strong believer in portents of good fortune. A record of 1734 of the Qing Imperial Household Department mentions a pair of big bowls made for the Emperor with the design of Jie Jie Shuang Xi, an expression that may be translated as ‘Constantly Ascending to Double Happiness’. This may refer to bowls painted with two birds, particularly magpies (the magpie is called Xi Que or ‘Happy Bird’ in Chinese), and bamboo, since the bamboo node (jie) is part of a popular pun for constant rising (Jie Jie Gao Sheng).   

Sotheby's. Yongzheng – The Age of Harmony and Integrity, Hong Kong, 07 avr. 2015

 

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