A superb copper-red 'fruit' meiping, Seal mark and period of Qianlong. Estimate 10,000,000 — 15,000,000 HKD (1,167,192 - 1,750,787 EUR). Unsold. Photo Sotheby's.

elegantly modelled after an early Ming dynasty prototype, superbly potted with rounded shoulders rising at a gently flaring angle from the base and sweeping to a short waisted neck with a slightly everted mouth, the exterior deftly painted with a wide frieze of five sprays arranged in an alternating double register, the upper register showing detached peach, pomegranate and finger citrus, the lower register with lychee and loquat, the leafy branches further issuing small blossoms and buds, the shoulders draped by a band of pendent lotus lappets enclosing elaborately picked out trefoils, below the waisted neck collared by interlocking ruyi heads with stylised leafy florets, the foot further bordered by a band of upright overlapping plantain leaves, all painted in soft washes of copper red of a rosy-pink tone with occasional speckles of apple green, accented by simulated 'heaping and piling' effect, the recessed base centred with an underglaze-blue six-character seal mark; 29.7 cm., 11 3/4  in.

Provenance: Collection of Sir Harry Garner (1891-1977).
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 23rd May 1978, lot 107.

Exhibition: Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester, on loan.
Chinese and Japanese Ceramics from the Collection of Sir Harry and Lady Garner, Bluett & Sons Ltd, London, 1973, no. 52, pl. XXI.

Bibliography: Soame Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain. The Ch'ing Dynasty (1644-1912), London, 1951, pl. XXII, fig. 2.

Notes: The Qianlong Emperor commissioned the production of many meiping vases, in various sizes and with various kinds of glazes and decorations but, as discussed above, the present piece appears to be unique. It also has an illustrious provenance, from the collection of Sir Harry Garner, KBE, CB, Litt.D (1891-1977), who was a distinguished mathematician, and a famous scholar and collector, and once President of the Oriental Ceramic Society (1967-70). He authored several standard reference works on Chinese art, for example, on blue-and-white porcelain, lacquer ware and cloisonné enamels, and donated much of his vast collection of Chinese ceramics and other works of art to the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

In the Palace Museum, Beijing, there is a Qianlong-marked meiping with broad shoulder and closely related design in underglaze red from the Qing court collection, but with only three fruits, peach, pomegranate and finger citron; see The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (III), Shanghai, 2000, pl. 173 (fig. 1).

Underglaze-red ‘fruit sprays’ meiping, seal mark and period of Qianlong, Collection of Palace Museum, Beijing. After: The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (III), Shanghai, 2000, pl. 173.

Compare also two meiping with related sprays of fruits and flowers in underglaze red, one included in the Illustrated Catalogue of Tokyo National Museum. Chinese Ceramics II, Tokyo, 1990, pl. 570, the other sold in these rooms, 21st May 1985, lot 143; as well as a Qianlong-marked meiping with seven fruits in underglaze red but their branches painted in underglaze blue, sold twice in these rooms, 12th May 1983, lot 194, and 2nd November 1998, lot 301 (fig. 2).

Copper-red and underglaze-blue decorated ‘fruit sprays’ meiping, seal mark and period of Qianlong. Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 2nd November 1998, lot 301.

For the more usual type of Qianlong meiping with two alternating registers of sprays of three fruiting and three flowering branches painted in underglaze blue, also following the Yongle model, see an example in the Nanjing Museum, Nanjing, illustrated in The Official Kiln Porcelain of the Chinese Qing Dynasty, Shanghai, 2003, p. 215; and one from the Edward T. Chow collection, sold in these rooms, 19th May 1981, lot 546, illustrated in Michel Beurdeley and Guy Raindre, Qing Porcelain, London, 1987, pl. 153. See also a third vase published in Chinese Porcelain. The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, Hong Kong, 1987, cat. no. 63, where Julian Thompson discusses this group of Qing blue and white wares as painted with re-designed Yongle motifs and patterns, particularly in the borders and the simulated 'heaping and piling' of the cobalt blue, which further serves to heighten the three-dimensional quality of the design (p. 30). 

Publications by Sir Harry Garner include Oriental Blue & White, published by Faber and Faber, London in three editions in 1954, 1964 and 1970. Its Chinese version (Shanghai, 1992) was jointly translated by Ye Wencheng, once president of Chinese Society of Ancient Ceramics. For examples of ceramics donated by Sir Harry to the British Museum, see Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, pls. 1:19, 12:132. The present meiping was published in Soame Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain. The Ch'ing Dynasty (1644-1912), London, 1951. Jenyns worked at the British Museum between 1931 and 1967, published extensively on Ming and Qing porcelain, and also made gifts from his own Chinese porcelain collection to the Oriental Antiquities Department of the Museum. 

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 07 oct. 2015, 02:30 PM