Note: This teapot combines two mediums to create a highly original and luxurious vessel that is equally functional. A related cinnabar lacquer and Yixing teapot, with a Qianlong mark and of the period, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated in K.S. Lo, The Stonewares of Yixing from the Ming Period to the Present Day, London, 1986, pl. VII, where the author suggests that lacquered Yixing wares were the product of experiments that followed the somewhat unsuccessful attempts to use famille-rose enamels on Yixing clay, p. 215.

See also a teapot of this type, from the collection of K.S. Lo, included in the exhibition Yixing. Purple Clay Wares, Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware, Hong Kong, 1994, cat. no. 35; one, bearing the mark of Shi Dabin, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Zhongguo meishu quanji. Gongyi meishu. Qiqi [Anthology of Chinese art. Decorative arts. Lacquer], vol. 8, Beijing, 1989, pl. 136; and two, with Qianlong marks and of the period, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, the first, 29th April 2002, lot 534, and the second, 1st December 2010, lot 3097. Compare also a lacquered Yixing teapot, decorated with kui dragons in the qianjin-and-tianqi technique, illustrated in K.S. Lo, op. cit., pl. XXXIX; and another Qianlong mark and period example painted in gilt with chrysanthemum flowers, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Lacquer Wares of the Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong, 2006, pl. 114.

Tea wares were produced in a myriad of media during the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns, including jade, cloisonné and painted enamel, and porcelain. See for example a jade teapot, of slightly compressed globular form, from the collection of R.L. Liu, included in the exhibition Virtuous Treasures. Chinese Jades for the Scholar’s Table, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2008, p. 75; and a painted enamel example decorated with plum blossoms over a cracked-ice ground, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Masterpieces of Chinese Enamel Ware in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1971, pl. 48.