Lot 242. A well-carved white jade vase and cover, Qing dynasty, 18th-19th century; height 8 in., 20.3 cm. Est. 80,000 — 100,000 USD. Lot sold 80,500 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

of slender baluster shape rising from a tall, slightly everted foot decorated with four flanges, the body finely carved in low-relief with large pendent lappets each enclosing a stylized taotie mask, the shoulder and neck decorated with a band of taotie masks between S-shaped curls and set with a pair of phoenix-head handles each suspending a loose ring, the cover decorated with four rams in low relief below a hollow floret knop, a Qianlong four-character seal-script mark carved on the exterior of the foot rim, the stone an even whitish tone, the cover possibly associated (2).

Provenance: Estate of Pauline E. Woolworth.
Sotheby's New York, 28th November 1994, lot 27.

Note: The mark on this vase uses stylized seal-script characters and can be found on a number of jades of archaistic form or design in known collections. Compare, for example, a small white jade dragon and ring pendant bearing this mark in the collection of the Seattle Art Museum, published in James C.Y. Watt, Chinese Jades from the Collection of the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, 1989, pl. 68; an identical mark is incised on the base of an archaistic yellow jade vase in the Palace Museum Collection, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Jadeware, vol. III, Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 66. 

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. 16 Sep 09. New York.