A fine and large flambé-glazed bottle vase, seal mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795)
Lot 3023. A fine and large flambé-glazed bottle vase, seal mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795); 46 cm., 18 1/8 in. Estimate 2,000,000 — 3,000,000 HKD. Lot Sold 3,620,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's
of finely potted tall pear shape, supported on a slightly splayed foot, gently rising to a slender neck, covered with a rich lilac-purple glaze feathered with milky blue, draining from the rim leaving a sesame coloured band, suffused overall with a network of fine glaze crackles, the base covered with a café-au-lait glaze and incised with a six-character reign mark.
Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 27th April 1993, lot 84.
Note: A slightly larger vase of closely related form with a Qianlong seal mark and of the period, but with more copper-red hues, in the Nanjing Museum, was included in the exhibition Qing Imperial Porcelain of the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Reigns, Art Gallery, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1995, cat. no. 64; another is illustrated in Michel Beurdeley and Guy Raindre, Qing Porcelain. Famille; and a third example from the collection of Thomas Barlow Walker and later the British Rail Pension Fund was sold twice in our rooms, in New York, 26th September 1972, lot 833, and again, 16th May 1989, lot 63. A larger Qianlong vase of this shape and glaze is published in Mayuyama: Seventy Years, vol. 1, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 1080.
By the Qing dynasty 'Jun' wares were regarded as objects of admiration at court as well as amongst literati connoisseurs and wealthy merchant collectors. The Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors sought to reproduce the beautiful glaze effects and graceful forms of 'Jun' wares by commissioning copies from the imperial workshops at Jingdezhen. For the inspiration of this vase compare a 'Jun' vase in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Chun Ware of the Sung Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1961, pl. 3; and another in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., published in Oriental Ceramics. The World's Great Collections, vol. 9, Tokyo, 1981, col. pl. 12.
Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 08 april 2011