Lot 3105. A large spinach-green jade 'Champion' vase, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736-1795); 23.8 cm., 9 3/8  in. Estimate 1,000,000 — 1,500,000 HKD. Lot sold 1,250,000 HKD (161,250 USD). © Sotheby's

boldly worked and hollowed in the form of two tubular pedestal vases flanking an eagle standing on the head of a recumbent winged bear, the eagle's wings outstretched across both vases, each vase centred with a band enclosing stylised phoenix writhing sinuously and a chilong band, all between two pendent leiwenblades, the foot bordered with a key-fret band, the stone of a dark green colour mottled with grey and beige inclusions, wood stand.

Provenance: An American private collector.
Christie's Hong Kong, 1st November 2004, lot 834.

Note: This finely carved ‘champion’ vase encapsulates the Qianlong emperor’s reverence for the past, as it derives from archaic bronze vessels produced from as early as the Western Han dynasty (206 BC- AD 9). These prototypes were cast in the form of two cups joined by an eagle (ying) standing on a bear (xiong); see one excavated in Mancheng, Hebei province, illustrated in Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jades. From the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, p. 387, fig. 4. ‘Champion’ vases regained popularity in the Song dynasty (960-1279), and by the Qianlong reign (1735-1796) became an important part of marriage rituals, with the two compartments of the vase symbolising the union between bride and groom.

Xiqing Gujian, Chinese Ritual Bronzes in the Collection of Qianlong Emperor.

A similar vase and cover, but the cylinders carved under the rim with a band of raised studs, is illustrated in Robert Kleiner, Chinese Jades from the Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 73; one was sold in our London rooms, 20th November 1973, lot 71; another, with a Qianlong mark and of the period, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in the Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum. Jade, Qing Dynasty, vol. 10, Beijing, 2011, pl. 149; and a slightly larger example, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is published in S. Howard Hansford, Chinese Carved Jades, London, 1968, pl. 94. 

Compare also vases of this form but of smaller size, such as one in the De An Tang collection, included in the exhibition A Romance with Jade, Palace Museum, Beijing, 2004, cat. no. 131; and another exhibited in Jade as Sculpture, Minnesota Museum of Art, Saint Paul, 1975, cat. no. 64. 

‘Champion’ vases were made in a variety of media; for an example see a bronze vase attributed to the Song dynasty, illustrated in Paul Moss and Gerard Hawthorn, The Second Bronze Age. Later Chinese Metalwork, Sydney Moss Ltd., London, 1991, cat. no. 35; and a cloisonné enamel example from the Clague collection, included in the exhibition Chinese Cloisonné, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, 1980, cat. no. 39. 

Sotheby's. Imperial Porcelain and Works of Art from a Hong Kong Private Collection, Hong Kong, 07 april 2015, 10:15 AM