Lot 103. An exquisite flambé-glazed censer with handles, Incised seal mark and period of Qianlong (1736-1795); 16.7 cm, 6 1/2 in. Estimate: 1,800,000 - 2,500,000 HKD. Lot sold 6,020,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's 2012

the bombé sides rising from a thick straight foot to a slightly waisted neck, the sides flanked by a pair of slender looped handles, covered on the exterior with a smooth and glossy brilliant raspberry glaze transmuting to a plum-coloured glaze with milky streaks drizzling down from the cream-rimmed mouth, the interior evenly streaked with a milky lavender-blue glaze cascading down resembling a waterfall,  gathering in the unctious swirling pool of sky-blue glaze concentrating on the base of the interior, the underside dressed in a thin toffee-coloured glaze covering the incised six-character reign mark.

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. 48 

Literature: Helen D. Ling and E.T. Chow, Collection of Chinese Ceramics from the Pavilion of Ephemeral Attainment, vol. IV, Hong Kong, 1950, pl. 190.

Note: Flambé-glazed incense burners are rarely found with an imperial reign mark, and this fine shape is better known with other glazes. Compare, for example, a censer of Qianlong mark and period with a Ru-type glaze in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, included in the museum’s exhibition Qingdai danse you ciqi tezhan [Special exhibition of monochrome glazed porcelain of the Qing dynasty], Taipei, 1981, cat. no. 87.