Lot 3377. A small painted enamel jar, zhadou, Qianlong four-character mark within a double square in iron red and of the period (1736-1795); 3 5/8 in. (9.2 cm.) high. Estimate HKD 300,000 - HKD 500,000. Price realised HKD 475,000. © Christie's Image Ltd 2020.

The jar is enamelled on the bombe shaped body with two cartouches in mirror image of a European lady and a gentleman in a garden, and surrounded by floral scrolls and arabesques on a bright turquoise ground. The trumpet neck is encircled by a ruyi band and upright plantain leaves below a link-chain border at the mouth rim. The interior is enamelled with pale blue, box.

Provenance: Sold at Christie's Paris, 15 June 2005, lot 425.

Note: Compare to a very similar shaped jar with European figures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and illustrated in Exhibition of Imperial Enamel Ware of Qing Dynasty, Taipei, 1979, pl. 139. 

Christie's. Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 26 November 2014