The ovoid vase with a short, slightly waisted neck standing on a short ring foot, moulded on either side in medium relief with inverted vase-form handles below the sloping shoulder, covered overall with a rich mottled glaze ranging from pale blue through turquoise to purple, reminiscent of the colours of peacock feathers, box.

Provenance: Previously sold at Christie's London, 13 May 2008, lot 208.  

Note: Several other robin's-egg-glazed vases of this shape are recorded: one in the Museé Guimet, Paris, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, Kodansha Series, vol. 7, Tokyo, 1982, no. 184; in the Jingdezhen Ceramic Museum, illustrated in Keitokuchin Jiki, 1982, pl. 88 (bottom left); one included in An Exhibition of Important Chinese Ceramics from the Robert Chang Collection, Christie's London, 1993, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 49; and another illustrated by A. du Boulay, Christie's Pictorial History of Chinese Ceramics, London, 1984, p. 220, fig. 3, which was sold at Christie's Hotel Okura, Tokyo, Part II, 16 and 17 February 1980, lot 838. However the colour of the current vase is uncommon in that is has a more mauve tone than usual, making it closer to that of the so-called 'peacock-feather' glaze examples, such as the censer sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 1 November 2004, lot 876.

Robin's-egg blue glazes are typically opaque turquoise with overall purplish mottling and are thought to have first developed during the Yongzheng period as a free interpretation of Song dynasty Jun glazes.