A 'boneless' famille-rose 'chrysanthemum' meiping, Seal mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795)
Lot 3063. A 'boneless' famille-rose 'chrysanthemum' meiping, Seal mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795); 32.4 cm., 12 3/4 in. Estimate 1,200,000 — 1,800,000 HKD. Lot Sold 3,860,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's
of ovoid form with a short waisted neck below a slightly everted mouthrim, deftly painted around the sides with large blossoming chrysanthemums, in shaded pink, white, iron-red and yellow growing from a large porous garden rock, beside the twin trunks of a sparsely foliated tree, the base inscribed in iron-red with a four-character reign mark.
Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 12th May 1976, lot 280.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 18th May 1988, lot 277.
Note: Charmingly painted with colourfully rendered butterflies and chrysanthemums of a broad palette, meiping vases of this design are rare. This vase is a good example of the developments in painting during the eighteenth century where craftsmen were able to attain a spectrum of enamel colours previously unseen in Chinese porcelain. The scene on the present vase is painted in the 'boneless style', where wash and colour were emphasised and line was reserved for the rendering of the veins, such as the leaves and wings of the butterflies. This technique was rarely employed on porcelain and generally reserved for smaller wares.
For a Yongzheng baluster vase painted with peony, chrysanthemum and lily blooms issuing from rockwork and a pair of butterflies in the 'boneless style' see one from the Frederick E. Fuller collection sold twice in our Los Angeles rooms, 25th September 1972, lot 99, again, 14th June 1979, lot 1217, and a third time in these rooms, 3rd May 1994, lot 228. This style of painting continued into the nineteenth century as seen in a Daoguang globular vase, decorated with a fruiting and flowering pomegranate tree and rockwork sold in these rooms, 5th May 1990, lot 274.
Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 08 april 2011