Lot 2119. A fine and very rare lavender-glazed bottle vase, Yongzheng six-character seal mark and of the period (1723-1735); 6 in. (15.2 cm.) high. Estimate HKD 400,000 - HKD 600,000. Price realised HKD 5,300,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2012 

The vase is exquisitely potted with the angled shoulder tapering to a tall slim cylindrical neck. It is covered overall with a soft lavender glaze with the exception of the base bearing the seal mark written in three vertical lines under a transparent glaze, wood stand.

Provenance: Mrs. Potter Palmer, Chicago (1849-1918)
J. Insley Blair (1870-1939) and thence by descent to the present owners 

Literature: The J. Insley Blair Collection of Chinese Porcelain, Tuxedo Park, New York, 1925, pl. III, no. 116

Note: Compare to a pair of vases of this same size, shape and glaze, formerly in the J. P. Morgan and Peter A.B. Widener Collections, now in National Gallery of Art, Washington, illustrated in Decorative Arts, Part II, Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 86. Another example, also of same shape and glaze, is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and was bequeathed by Benjamin Altman in 1913, who was a contemporary of J. Insley Blair (acquisition no.: 14.40.31).