Page 103 - Reginald and Lena Palmer Collection EXHIBITION, Bonhams London Oct 25 to November 2 2021

Traditional Chinese elements are mixed however, in the present vase.
The archaistic chilong - motifs found on ancient bronzes - demonstrate
the Qianlong Emperor’s fascination with archaism. The Emperor is
recorded to have exhorted his Court and craftsmen to look to China’s
archaic past for moral guidance and artistic inspiration. Moreover,
idyllic mountainous landscape scenes, as seen on the vase, were
popular with scholars during the Qing dynasty, frequently portraying
one or more number of sages often accompanied by their attendants.
Deemed to function as analogues to their real counterpart, these
model landscapes provided the learned men with an idealised escape
from the world of mundane affairs where they could forge their identity
as poets, calligraphers and philosophers; for further discussion see
A.Stein, ‘The World in Miniature: Container Gardens and Dwellings’,
in Far Eastern Religious Thought, Stanford, 1990; and J.Rawson,
‘Cosmological Systems as Sources of Art, Ornament and Design’, in
Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 2000, pp.133-189.

See a related painted enamel vase with similar bands of decoration on
the long neck, Qianlong six-character mark and of the period, in the
Qing Court Collection, illustrated in the Compendium of Collections in
the Palace Museum: Enamels, 5, Beijing, 2011, p.102, no.69.

Images courtesy of the Palace Museum, Beijing

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