Lot 20. The Au Bak Ling Collection. A fine and rare famille rose 'magpie and prumus' vase, Republic period (1912-1949); 32 cm high. Price realised HKD 630,000 (Estimate HKD 150,000-250,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2024.

The tall ovoid vase has a short cylindrical neck. The sides are painted in famille rose enamels with two magpies perched on a blossoming and budding prunus tree above two white rabbits shown grazing. At the base of the tree are rocks and flowers, including roses painted in shades of pinkish-white, pink and iron-red colour growing beside an outcrop of blue-green rocks beside a pink lily. A double-circle is painted in underglaze-blue on the base.

Provenance: Sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 16 May 1977, lot 227

Note: Magpies are a popular motif found in Chinese art as they embody the auspicious wishes for good luck, happiness and marital bliss. Magpies are often depicted perched on prunus trees, providing the rebus xishang meishao ‘may your joy reach up to the top of your eyebrows’. The depiction of a rabbit with lingzhi, both referencing longevity, is a considerably rarer motif, although it is also found on a Yongzheng-marked enamelled copper snuff bottle, illustrated in Lifting the Spirit and Body: The Art and Culture of Snuff Bottles, Taipei, 2012, p. 114. The combination of these auspicious motifs is extremely rare and does not seem to appear on earlier or other contemporary examples.