Lot 3117. An extraordinary blue and white 'lotus' mouth bottle vase, mark and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735); 34.7 cm., 13 5/8 in. Estimate 20,000,000 — 30,000,000 HKD. Lot Sold 23,060,000 HKD  (2,956,410 USD) to an Asian Private. Photo Sotheby's

very finely potted with an almost globular body resting on a wide splayed footring and rising smoothly to a tall slender neck encircled by a single raised fillet and modelled at the mouth in the form of a lotus pod enclosed by nine moulded petals, the centre of the pod with a low lipped rim forming the mouth of the vase, applied on the shoulders with two lion masks supporting mock ring handles, the main field of the body finely painted in underglaze blue of vibrant tone with 'heaping and piling', in imitation of early Ming decoration, with a composite floral meander, including lotus, camellia, mallow, hibiscus and rose, on slender stems with curling leaves, all between a border of stiff upright lappets, each enclosing a string of five pearls against the blue ground, and a band of waves below the raised white fillet, a classic scroll around the foot, the upper neck painted to correspond to the modelling with overlapping petals, the thick clear glaze evenly suffused with bubbles giving a fine 'orange-peel' effect to the glossy surface, the base inscribed with a six-character reign mark within double circles in underglaze-blue.

Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong,15th May, 1990, lot 135.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 29th April, 1997, lot 408.  

Literature: Sotheby's Hong Kong, Twenty Years, 1973-1993, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 171.
Sotheby's. Thirty Years in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2003, pl. 265.

Note: No other blue and white vase of this elegant form appears to have been published although Yongzheng vases of the same form and with the same mark are known with a variety of fine monochrome glazes.

Compare the vase in the Palace Museum, Beijing, decorated in relief under a celadon glaze with archaistic dragons, phoenix and scrolls below a band of stiff leaves, illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, 1989, p 270, pl. 99, together with a second vase with a plain's robin's egg glaze, p. 291, pl. 120 ; an undecorated celadon-glazed vase was included in the exhibition Chinese Ceramics, Tokyo National Museum, 1994, cat. no. 331 ; another celadon example is illustrated in Ayers, The Baur Collection Geneva. Chineses Ceramics, vol. III, 1972, nos. A362-3, together with a teadust-glazed piece, no A391 ; and a flambé-glazed vase in Ayers, Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1980, col. 65.

The shape may be based on a bronze prototype which, however, would have had a lobed 'garlic-head' mouth instead of the raised lotus petals. Chenghua blue and white porcelain would have also served as inspiration; for example see a vase of related form to the present example, the pear-form body rising to a lotus bud shaped mouth with raised overlapping layers of petals, and the body freely painted with lotus blooms on meandering leafy stems, sold in these rooms, 9th October 2007, lot 1557.

Ming style decoration of this type can similarly be seen on other fine Yongzheng vases; for example, on a piece in Beijing, illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, 1989, p. 174, pl. 3.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 08 april 2011