A fine and rare miniature double-gourd doucai vase. Mark and period of Yongzheng. Photo Sotheby's

of well potted double-gourd form with a compressed spherical lower bulb rising up to a pear-shaped upper bulb terminating in a slender neck, the body painted with a pendent grapevine, its gnarled trunk bearing ripe grapes partially hidden by broad serrated leaves and curling tendrils, all in fine underglaze-blue outlines, brightly enamelled in red, yellow, aubergine and green enamels, the leaves in two tones of green, the reverse with a small tree shrew munching on a bunch of grapes on a patch of grass, the base inscribed with a six-character reign mark in a double ring; 12.2 cm., 4 3/4 in. Estimate 8,000,000-12,000,000 HKD

PROVENANCE: Collection of H.R.N. Norton (one of a pair).
Sotheby's London, 5th November 1963, lot 211 (one of a pair).
John Sparks Ltd, London (one of a pair).
Sotheby's London, 2nd/3rd December 1974, lot 528 (one of a pair).
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 23rd October 2005, lot 465.
Eskenazi Ltd, London.

LITERATURE: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1743.

NOTE: Yongzheng: Interpreting a Ming Classic
Regina Krahl

Freely painted sketches of grape vines in the doucai palette are one of the signature motifs of Chenghua (AD 1465-87) imperial porcelain. Ts'ai Ho-pi has suggested that the source for this porcelain design may be found in paintings and mentions a contemporary painter, Yue Zheng (AD 1418-72), who specialized in and was renowned for this genre ('Chenghua Porcelain in Historical Context' in The Emperor's broken china. Reconstructing Chenghua porcelain, Sotheby's London, 1995, p.21).

The grape vine design was particularly popular during that reign and appears on small dishes, such as lot 24, also in this collection, on small wine cups, as well as on stem cups. On the stem cups the grape motif is painted very differently, with the grapes suspended from branches with naturalistic vine leaves and curly tendrils, while on cups and small saucers it has been much more stylized. Compare a pair of grape stem cups in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the exhibition Chenghua ciqi tezhan / Special Exhibition of Ch'eng-hua Porcelain Ware, 1465-1487, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2003, cat. nos. 177 and 178 (fig. 1) with grape-decorated cups and saucers, cat. nos 179-83. It is these stemcups that have been singled out in literary sources, for example, in an early Kangxi period (AD 1662-1722) text, which says "As for the masterpieces of the Chenghua kilns, nothing surpasses the wucai grape stemcups" (Ts'ai, op. cit., p. 17). 

While the shape and basic design of this bottle go back to the Kangxi reign, there is no indication that at that time the reference to the Chenghua pattern was already in the potters' minds. A Kangxi gourd bottle of this form painted with the 'tree shrew and grapes' motif in underglaze blue only, is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, published in Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang Qingdai yuyao ciqi [Porcelains from the Qing dynasty imperial kilns in the Palace Museum collection], Beijing, 2005, vol. I, part I, pl. 46 (fig. 2). That motif, which had been applied to porcelain since the Ming dynasty, is notable for its auspicious symbolism, heralding ceaseless generations of sons and grandsons (Teresa Tse Bartholomew, Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 2006, p 79). 

It would seem that the Yongzheng Emperor, himself a great connoisseur of antique porcelains, initiated the association of this design to the famous Chenghua prototypes. Not only was the colour scheme changed to the doucai palette, but the painting style was also adapted and brought more in line with Chenghua originals. Naturally, for this revival style, the pattern of the celebrated stem cups served as model. 

Four other examples are known of this charming design, all individually styled and painted and varying greatly in composition: The pair to this vase, originally also from the Norton collection and sold together with the present vase at Sotheby's London in 1963 as well as 1974, is now in the Toguri Museum of Art, Tokyo (fig. 3), illustrated in Nakazawa Fujio, 'Chinese Ceramics in the Toguri Museum of Art', Orientations, April 1988, fig. 18, where the author states (p.
53) that "In quality it matches the famous doucai ware of the Ming Chenghua period (AD 1465-87) and the vase is one of Toguri's favourite pieces." 

A vase from the collections of C. Oswald Liddell and Charles Russell, sold in our London rooms, 25th June 1946, lot 83, and illustrated in Soame Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain, London, 1951, pl. XLVIII B, is now in the Sir Percival David Collection in the British Museum, London; another vase in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Gugong Qing ci tulu. Kangxi yao, Yongzheng yao / Illustrated Catalogue of Ch'ing Dynasty Porcelain in the National Palace Museum, Republic of China: K'ang-hsi Ware and Yung-cheng Ware, Tokyo, 1980, pl. 87, and again in Geng Baochang, Ming Qing ciqi jianding [Appraisal of Ming and Qing porcelain], Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 395; and a third, sold at Christie's London, 7th November 2006, lot 221 and now in the collection of Alan Chuang, illustrated in Julian Thompson, The Alan Chuang Collection of Chinese Porcelain, Hong Kong, 2009, cat. no. 54.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part III - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains. Hong Kong | 04 Apr 2012, 10:15 AM www.sothebys.com