A celadon-glazed double-gourd vase. Qianlong Seal Mark.  Photo Sotheby's

the lower bulb of compressed globular form with pronounced shoulders and surmounted by a pear-shaped upper bulb above the narrow constricted waist, covered overall with a thick bubble-suffused glaze of pale sea-green color drained to white at the rim, the countersunk base encircled by an unglazed footring burnt orange along the perimeter, sixcharacter seal mark in underglaze blue. Height 12 3/4 in., 32.3 cm.  Estimate 60,000-80,000 USD

PROVENANCE: Collection of Victor Rienaecker (b. 1887).
Sidney L. Moss, London, 25th May 1960.

NOTE: A closely related vase with cover in Nanjing Museum, Nanjing, was included in the exhibition Qing Imperial Porcelain of the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Reigns, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1995, cat. no. 69 and is illustrated in Zhongguo qingdai guanyao ciqi, Shanghai, 2003, p. 341; and another is published in Chinese Porcelain, The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, vol. 1, Hong Kong, 1987, pl. 160. See also a vase in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated in Suzanne G. Valenstein, The Herzman Collection of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1992, pl. 98; and a smaller example published in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 2, London, 1994, no. 864.

Compare also a vase formerly in the collection of Frederick J. and Antoinette H. Van Slyke sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 8th April 2011, lot 3020; and a slightly larger example sold in our London rooms, 12th July 2006, lot 142; and another sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 29th April 1997, lot 581.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. New York | 20 Mar 2012 www.sothebys.com