Lot 3646. A Guan-type triple-spouted 'double-gourd' vase, seal mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795). Estimate 800,000 — 1,000,000 HKD. Lot sold 1,000,000 HK. Photo Sotheby's.

well potted of double-gourd form and subtly divided into three 'lobes', the lower bulb rising from a short trefoil foot to a slender waisted neck and smaller upper bulb tapering to three narrow tubular mouthrims, applied overall save for the unglazed footring with a pale greyish-green glaze suffused with fine crackles, the base inscribed with an underglaze-blue six-character seal mark; 20.3 cm, 8 in.

Provenance: A private Japanese collection, Himeiji city, acquired in the 1950s, by repute.
Christie's Hong Kong, 3rd December 2008, lot 2568.

Notes: Similar triple vases with finely shaped trefoil feet are known covered with various greenish glazes inspired by Song dynasty glazes. A vase of this form with a crackled glaze, described as ‘sky-blue’, is illustrated in Geng Baochang, Ming Qing ciqi jianding [Appraisal of Ming and Qing Porcelain], Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 446; one without the distinct decorative crackles, in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, is illustrated in He Li, Chinese Ceramics. A New Standard Guide, London, 1996, pl. 521; another is published in John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, Geneva, 1999, pl. 270; two others were sold in our London rooms, 26th April 1966, lot 163 and 164; and a vase, from the Meiyintang Collection, was sold in these rooms, 7th June 2011, lot 34.

For the prototype of this form see a Yongzheng mark and period example, from the Hershel V. Johnson Collection, sold in our London rooms, 21st February 1967, lot 61.  

Sotheby's, Important Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 05 oct. 2016