Lot 3632. An extremely rare pair of large blue and white candlesticks, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period (1736-1795);  h. excluding pricket 57 cm., 22 3/8  in. Estimate 8,000,000 — 12,000,000 HKD. Unsold. Photo Sotheby's

each of slender proportion, sturdily potted on a stepped foot rising to a column of shapely statuesque profile, with elaborate contours flaring out and sweeping inwards forming waisted sections before swelling to a compressed bulb, all below a wide drip-pan connected to a sconce, decorated in shades of cobalt-blue with bands of decorations arranged in registers, the base with bajixiang emblems borne on billowing wisps of clouds and a band lotus scrolls, the columnar section painted variously in stylised lotus lappets, plantain leaves and pendent ruyi-heads, the interior of the drip-dish painted with four florets extending densely foliated vines, with a band of upright trefoil leaves around the neck, assembled from four sections potted separately.

Provenance: A European family collection, prior to 1950, by repute.

Notes: This pair of large blue and white candlesticks decorated in early Ming style is extremely rare and perhaps unique. They are very closely related to the famous altar garnitures created in 1740 and 1741 with dedicatory inscriptions by Tang Ying and comparable to candlesticks that Tang Ying fired to the order of the Qianlong Emperor, who gave detailed instructions on how they should be fired. Large candlesticks like the present pair are extremely rare and help to illuminate a little-known area of court art. They were fired and assembled in sections and demonstrate marvellous technical skill of manufacture, as porcelain of this size and delicate form is very difficult to construct, and prone to deform during firing.

In the fifth and sixth year of the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (1740 and 1741), Tang Ying commissioned several blue and white altar garnitures for temples in the vicinity of Beijing. These large garnitures consisted of five inscribed pieces: an incense burner; two vases and two candlesticks. No complete set of these inscribed altar pieces by Tang Ying appears to have survived, although a few candlesticks and vases are known, to which the present pair is closely related. 

In 1740, Tang Ying commissioned at least three similar altar garnitures for different temples at Dongzhimenwai, outside Beijing, according to the inscriptions written in underglaze blue on these pieces. Of one such set, made for the Holy Mother of the Immortals, a pair of vases is extant, preserved in the Shanghai Museum and published in Wang Qingzheng, Underglaze Blue & Red, Hong Kong, 1987, pl. 124. Of another set, made for the Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, a single vase is preserved, formerly in the collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, sold in these rooms, 16th May 1989, lot 39. Of the third set, made for Guanyin, a pair of candlesticks has survived and is now in the Roemer-Museum, Hildesheim, Germany, illustrated in Ulrich Wiesner, Chinesisches Porzellan. Die Ohlmer’sche Sammlung im Roemer-Museum, Hildesheim, Mainz, 1981, pp. 44 and 108.

In 1741, Tang Ying commissioned two garnitures for the altar of the Saintly Mother Heavenly Immortal of the Eastern Embankment. Extant pieces, all identically inscribed, include a pair of candlesticks in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, illustrated in Rose Kerr, Chinese Ceramics. Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty 1644 – 1911, London, 1986, p. 69, pl. 45; as well as a pair of vases, reputedly still together in the late 19th century, but separated since, one illustrated in The Tsui Museum of Art. Chinese Ceramics IV. Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 73, also in the exhibition catalogue Qing Imperial Porcelain, Art Gallery of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1995, cat. no. 75; the other passed down in the family of a French surgeon since the 19th century and sold in these rooms, 8th April 2007, lot 508 (fig. 1).

Blue and white candlestick, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period, dated to 1741. Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 8th April 2007, lot 508.

The National Museum of China, Beijing, owns another vase with this inscription, which shows slight variations in the decoration, seeZhongguo wenwu jinghua daquan. Taoci juan/Gems of China's Cultural Relics, Ceramics Section, Hong Kong, 1993, no.913. The present pair is very similar to the candlesticks of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Roemer-Museum in style and size, and was probably made under the auspices of Tang Ying around the same period in the early 1740s.

Also related to the present pair are shorter candlesticks that the Qianlong Emperor commissioned Tang Ying to make as reading lamps. According to a court record, in the second month of the ninth year of the Qianlong period (1744), the Emperor instructed two eunuchs to send to Tang Ying a blue and white inscribed ‘reading lamp’ as a model, together with a poem written by the Emperor, in order to fire a few reading lamps in underglaze blue or ‘foreign colours’ (famille-rose),  both in larger and smaller sizes, the calligraphy of the sample lamp to be replaced by his own poem, or, for candlesticks intended as altar pieces, the poem to be omitted, see Zhang Faying, Tang Ying du tao wendang [Archive on Tang Ying’s Supervision of the Imperial Kilns], Beijing, 2012, p. 162.

For two candlesticks made to the order of the Qianlong Emperor in 1744, one in underglaze blue and the other in ‘foreign colours’, in a style comparable to the present pair but of much shorter height and simpler form and inscribed with a poem, see Catalog of the Special Exhibition of K'ang-Hsi, Yung-Cheng and Ch'ien-Lung Porcelain Ware from the Ch'ing Dynasty in the National Palace Museum, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1986, cat. no. 141. A similar blue and white candlestick, of Qianlong mark and period without inscription, from the Dr. Ip Yee and Goldschmidt Collections, was sold twice in these rooms, 19th November 1984, lot 202, and 13th November 1990, lot 8, and again at Christies’ Hong Kong, 3rd November 1996, lot 759, and included in the Exhibition of Chinese Blue-and-white Porcelain and Related Underglaze Red, Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1975, cat. no. 110. A pair of candlesticks similar to the present pair, but much smaller, was sold in these rooms, 5th November 1997, lot 1455. 

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 07 oct. 2015