Property from the Personal Collection of Robin Woodhead.

Provenance: Private Collection, Japan
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 9th October 2007, Lot 1526.

Note: Covered in a subtle glaze of a misty bluish grey and suffused overall with a fine crackle, this beautiful vase of the Qianlong period (1736-95) pays tributes to the craftsmanship of the distant past. The glaze has been created in imitation of Ru ware, one of the Five Great Wares of the Song dynasty (960-1279) as defined by collectors of later periods, along with Ding, Ge, Jun and guan. The unglazed foot has been stained with a brown wash, which simulates the dark body of guan ware. Preserved in the National Palace Museum, Taipei is a vase of closely related hexagonal form, also with tubular handles on its neck and of Qianlong mark and period, but modelled in a smaller scale and covered in Ge-type glaze, accession no. zhong-ci-212.

The form of this vase was inspired by archaic bronze vessels hu, which were originally created as ritual wine containers for ancestral ceremonies. See, for example, the Ju Shu Hu from the Western Zhou dynasty (c. 1046-771 BC), the neck set with a pair of lug handles, cast with a pear-shaped body of oval section, all above a tall splayed foot, from the collection of Chen Chengqiu and now in the Palace Museum, Beijing, accession no. gu-77025. The present vessel reflects the Qianlong Emperor's penchant for these early wares, which he not only collected but also commissioned the imperial kilns to recreate or imitate.

Another Ru-type vase of this form sold twice in our Hong Kong rooms, 20th May 1981, lot 822 and, more recently, 3rd October 2017, lot 3638. Compare also an example sold in our Paris rooms, 10th June 2021, lot 58.

Lot 222. A fine Ru-type vase, Hu, Seal mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795). Height 33.2 cm, 13 in. Lot sold: £201,600 (Estimate: £100,000 - 150,000). © 2022 Sotheby's.

the base with a six-character seal mark in underglaze blue.