Lot 3517. A Blue and White and Copper Red ‘Dragon’ Moonflask, Qianlong Period, 1736-1795. H 38.7cm. Estimate HKD 22,000,000 - 32,000,000 (USD 2,803,350 - 4,077,600). Lot sold HKD 33,040,000 (USD 4,208,305). © Poly Auction Hong Kong Limited

The moonflask is potted with a flattened globular form supporting on a short straight foot. It is superbly and deftly painted on each side in soft ruby tones of copper-red with a ferocious full-faced dragon. The scaly five-clawed beast is framed by flaring horns and long flowing mane above furrowed brows and piercing blue eyes, entwining a central 'flaming pearl' amid a scatter of vaporous clouds and leaping above turbulent rolling waves accented with foaming crests. The shoulder is flanked by a pair of handles decorating with a band of underglaze-blue spirals, reaching up to a straight neck with underglaze-blue bands below the rim. The base is inscribed with the six-character seal mark in underglaze-blue.

Provenance: 1. European private collection, acquired in Europe in the 1960s
2. Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 8 April 2009, lot.1605
3. The Ten-views Lingbi Rock Retreat Collection, no. EK359, Purchased from Eskenazi.

Literature: R.P. Marchant, 'Some Interesting Pieces of Marked Ch'ing Porcelain', Bulletin of the Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong, no. 3, 1977-8, pls 50-53.