Lot 426. A fine blue and white Ming-style bottle vase, seal mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795). Estimate 1,200,000 — 1,500,000 HKD. Lot sold 2,000,000 HKD. Photo: Sotheby's

the globular body rising from a short foot to a tall waisted neck, moulded around the stepped shoulder and the body with fillets, finely painted in rich 'heaped and piled' cobalt-blue tones with a composite flower scroll band, all between lotus-lappet and classic scroll bands at the foot and a ruyi band at the shoulder, the neck with stiff leaf and keyfret bands below a wave band at the rim, the recessed base inscribed with a six-character seal mark; 37.2 cm., 14 5/8  in.

Provenance: Collection of the Shafto family, Beamish Hall, County Durham, and thence by descent.
Eskenazi, New York, March 2011.

Notes: Elegantly decorated with early-Ming inspired motifs, the craftsman of this vase has also attempted to imitate the mottled ‘heaping and piling’ effect of the celebrated 15th century blue and white wares through a deliberate application of darker and thicker spots of cobalt on the design. A closely related example in the Nanjing Museum, is illustrated in Treasures of the Royalty: The Official Kiln Porcelain of the Chinese Qing Dynasty, Shanghai, 2003, p. 233; one in the Shanghai Museum is published in Zhongguo taoci quanji, vol. 15, Shanghai, 2000, pl. 2; and four vases are illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, vol. III, London, 1996, pl. 2564, one with an elaborate 19th century Ottoman gilt-metal cover. Another vase of this type, from the Toguri collection, was sold in these rooms, 9th June 2004, lot 5; another was sold in our London rooms, 10th November 2010, lot 102A; and a third vase was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 31st  May 2010, lot 1999.