Lot 111. A fine and rare Ru-type bottle vase, Seal mark and period of Qianlong  (1736-1795); 20 cm, 7 7/8 in. Estimate: 2,500,000 - 3,500,000 HKD. Lot sold 3,620,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's

elegantly potted with a compressed globular body sweeping up to a tall cylindrical neck with a slightly flared mouth, all supported on a short foot, covered overall in a thick pale blue-grey glaze suffused throughout with a fine network of beige-coloured crackles, the foot dressed in a brown wash faithfully imitating Song dynasty Ru ware, the base inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character reign mark, stand. 

Provenance: Acquired in Shanghai in the 1930s and 1940s.

Exhibited: Zandelou Qingdai guanyao danseyou ciqi/Qing Imperial Monochromes. The Zandelou Collection, Shanghai Museum, Beijing Museum and Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005, cat. no. 34.

Literature: Helen D. Ling and E.T. Chow, Collection of Chinese Ceramics from the Pavilion of Ephemeral Attainment, vol. IV, Hong Kong, 1950, pl. 172.

Note: While a profusion of new shapes for porcelain vases was already developed in the Yongzheng period, in the Qianlong reign the number of variations multiplied and seems sheer endless. Geng Baochang, Ming Qing ciqi jianding [Appraisal of Ming and Qing porcelain], Hong Kong, 1993, pp. 259 and 263 publishes over twenty related forms of bottle vases with pear-shaped or globular body and tall slender neck, which often vary only minimally in profile. 

Beside the present example, two other pear-shaped vases of Qianlong mark and period with Ru or guan-type glazes are in the Zande Lou collection, both included together with the present piece in the Shanghai Museum exhibition, op. cit., cat. no. 28, with the neck more waisted, and cat. no. 33, with more cylindrical neck. The present shape, with a more depressed body, is otherwise very rare.