A rare Guan-type quadruple vase, Yongzheng seal mark and period (1723-1735)

11 mars 2019

A rare Guan-type quadruple vase, Yongzheng seal mark and period (1723-1735)

Lot 518. A rare Guan-type quadruple vase, Yongzheng seal mark and period (1723-1735). Height 3 7/8 in., 9.9 cm. Estimate USD 80,000 — 120,000. Lot sold 100,000 USD. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

finely potted as four vases of slender cylindrical form with sides gently curving to a short neck and everted rim, conjoined at the sides, the bodies covered overall in a soft pale bluish-gray glaze suffused with a matrix of golden crackles, the footring applied with dark brown dressing, each base with one character of the four-character reign mark in underglaze-blue.

Provenance: Collection of Samuel T. Peters (d. 1921).
C.T. Loo, New York, 1951.
Collection of Stephen Junkunc III (d. 1978).

Note: Inspired by Song dynasty prototypes, vases of this charming and unusual form were an innovation of the Yongzheng reign, and required craftsmen’s utmost attention in potting and firing. A slightly smaller vase of this type in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in Qingdai yuyao ciqi [Qing imperial porcelains], vol. 1, Beijing, 2005, pl. 149; two were sold in our Hong Kong rooms, the first, 24th May 1985, lot 503, and the second, 22nd May 1984, lot 185, and again, 8th April 2011, lot 3002; and another from the collections of James W. and Marilyn Alsdorf and Robert Chang, was sold twice at Christie’s Hong Kong, 23rd March 1993, lot 735, and 2nd November 1999, lot 524.

Vases of this form with Yongzheng marks and of the period, are also known covered in other monochrome glazes: see a slightly larger vase with a Ru-type glaze, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the museum’s exhibition Qing Monochrome Porcelain, Taipei, 1981, cat. no. 77; a celadon-glazed example from the J.M. Hu Collection, sold in these rooms, 4th June 1985, lot 40; and a slightly smaller version covered in a teadust glaze, also sold in these rooms, 21st March 2018, lot 536.

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 22 March 2019