Lot 16. A rare blue and white ‘dragon’ moonflask, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period; 29.5cm., 11 5/8 in. Estimate 200,000-300,000 GBP. Lot sold 770,500 GBP. Photo: Sotheby's.

the flattened globular body rising from a short oval foot to a slender waisted neck, flanked by a pair of chilonghandles, the front and back face painted with vivid shades of cobalt-blue depicting a five-clawed dragon and a smaller attendant dragon leaping from turbulent cresting waves, the dragons detailed with ferocious faces and scaly bodies, writhing amongst stylised clouds and flame wisps with bats in flight, all below a band of pendent ruyi heads, the base originally with a six-character seal mark which has since been erased

Provenance: An English Private Collection.

The form of the present piece is unusual for its high shoulders, and appears to have derived from moonflasks of the early Ming reigns of Yongle (1403-24) and Xuande (1426-35), the greatest period for the production of blue and white porcelain. Dragons rarely appeared on moonflasks before the Qianlong reign although a small number of examples exist from the early Ming period; see an example from the collections of Edward T. Chow and T.Y. Chao, included in the exhibition Zhongguo ming tao Riben xunhui zhan [Exhibition of famous Chinese ceramics touring Japan], National Museum of History, Taipei, 1992, pp 118-121, illustrated on the slip case and again in Sotheby’s: Thirty Years in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2003, pl. 205. 

While moonflasks decorated with front-facing dragons are well-known, examples painted with side-facing dragons as rendered on this piece are rare and are directly inspired by early-Ming designs. The composition of a dragon leaping from the crashing waves and surrounded by swirling clouds remains the same; however the Qing craftsman has adapted the design to suit the Qianlong emperor’s taste for the ornate by including an additional dragon and a complex array of clouds and bats. For the Ming prototype, see one attributed to the Yongle period, from the Edward T. Chow and T.Y. Chao collections, sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 18th November 1986, lot 34, and illustrated in Michel Beurdeley, La Ceramique Chinoise, Fribourg, 1974, col. pl. 56, and inSekai toji zenshu, vol. 11, Tokyo, 1955, pl. 74; and another sold in these rooms, 13th June 1989, lot 210. The porcelain painters of the 18th century were so enamoured with the appearance of early 15th-century blue and white that they developed a special painting manner to imitate the accidental imperfections of their models, namely by recreating the so-called ‘heaped and piled’ effect of darker spots of cobalt blue through deliberate uneven dotting.