Lot 3160. A rare inscribed famille rose and doucai moonflask, Qianlong period (1736-1795); 12 ½ in. (31.7 cm.) high. Estimate $150,000 – $200,000. Price realised USD 365,000. © Christie’s Image Ltd 2015

The flattened, circular body is decorated in famille rose enamels on one side with a circular panel enclosing blossoming peony and chrysanthemum beneath a flowering osmanthus tree, and on the other side with another panel enclosing a lengthy poetic inscription in kaishu describing the autumnal scene and ending with the characters Qian and Long, all reserved on a decorative ground of doucai lotus scroll and iron-red bats that continues onto the neck which has a ruyi-head border at the mouth rim and is flanked by a pair of arched ruyi scepter handles, box.

Provenance: Sotheby's London, 14 November 2001, lot 116.

Note: Famille rose enamels were first incorporated into the doucai palette during the Yongzheng period, their range of transparent, translucent and opaque colors, stand in strong contrast to the cobalt-blue contours of the doucaidecoration, creating an unprecedented visual interplay both rich in color and texture. 

During the Qianlong period, the production of doucai wares was taken to new heights, bringing more elaborate designs that required exceptionally high standards of painting and enameling. The present vase testifies to such technical dexterity and artistic sophistication. The outlines of the scrolling doucai borders had to be meticulously painted in underglaze blue to create a complex but well-balanced composition, which compliments the famille rose-decorated central panel, endowing the colorful and much textured scene with resplendence. 

The present vase belongs to a small group of vessels featuring this combination of techniques and alternation floral decoration and poetic inscriptions. A virtually identical moonflask of this design featuring the same inscription was sold at Sotheby's London, 16 June 1998, lot 289. Other examples from this group include a tall doucai and famille rosevase with alternating panels of poetic inscriptions and floral branches in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated by Yeh Pei-Lang, Gems of the Doucai, Taiwan, 1993, p. 106, pl. 113. Like the present example, the Palace Museum vase features elaborate handles decorated in bright famille rose enamels. Also illustrated, p. 109, pl. 116, is another Qianlongdoucai moonflask decorated with landscape scenes, but with similar floral scroll bands on the narrow sides and neck. 

Christie’s. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 15 - 16 March 2015, New York, Rockefeller Plaza