A FINE AND RARE YELLOW-GROUND GREEN ENAMELLED 'DRAGON' VASE - QIANLONG INCISED SIX-CHARACTER SEALMARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)

The slim baluster body finely engraved with a single, lively, scaly five-clawed dragon, enamelled in emerald-green on the translucent egg-yolk yellow ground, striding above a border of swirling and breaking waves, enamelled in two contrasting tones of green, detailed with scrolling ruyi clouds on either side of the trumpet neck, flanked by a pair of tubular handles with narrow borders of key-fret, the splayed foot pierced with two horizontal slots, the base incised with the reign mark. 12 in. (30.5 cm.) high, box - Price Realized: HK$16,567,500 ($2,132,287)

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

Literature: Anthony du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, Oxford, 1984, p. 212, pl. 2
Sotheby's Hong Kong Twenty Years, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 371

Lot Notes: The present vase is one of a pair previously sold at Christie's London, 25 November 1974, lot 212, and sold again at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 29 November 1976, lot 579.

The inspiration of the form is undoubtedly from archaic bronze hu-shaped vessels particularly those dated to the Western Zhou period (1100-771 BC) cast with a pair of pierced slots above the splayed foot, cf. a wine vessel dated to the mid-Western Zhou period, excavated in 1975 from Baijia cun in Shaanxi province, illustrated in Zhongguo Wenwu Jinghua Dacidian, qingtong juan, Shanghai, 1995, p. 134, no. 464.

A comparable Qianlong-marked example of this shape and pattern is in the Beijing Palace Museum collection, illustrated in Kangxi Yongzheng Qianlong, Hong Kong, 1985, p. 442, pl. 124.

Christie's Hong Kong. The Imperial Sale including Elegance and Artistry. Treasures from a Private Collection. 27 May 2008