Page 18 - Studio of the Clear Garden Chinese ceramics NYC Mar 2018

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A ROBIN’S EGG-BLUE-GLAZED ‘LANTERN’ VASE
QIANLONG INCISED SIX-CHARACTER SEAL MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)
The body tapers slightly towards the foot and is fanked by a pair of molded mock handles in the shape of
inverted vases below the high shoulder and wide, slightly waisted neck. The vase is covered overall with an
opaque turquoise glaze densely mottled in bright, dark blue that also covers the foot and mark, while the
foot is covered in a blackish-brown wash.
9º in. (23.5 cm.) high
$60,000-80,000

(mark)
PROVENANCE
Hall Family Collection (inventory no. 271).
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 2 May 2000, lot 568.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 10 April 2006, lot 1628.
The Studio of the Clear Garden.
Vases of this ‘lantern’ shape, applied with the unusual mock handles of inverted vase shape, originated in
the Yongzheng period, when they were made with Guan and Ge-type glazes, such as the two Yongzheng
examples in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated by Geng Baochang (ed.), Gugong Bowuyuan cang
Qingdai yuyao ciqi, Beijing, 2005, pls. 174 and 206. However, during the Qianlong period the shape
became a vehicle for the robin’s egg-blue glaze.

A similar robin’s egg-blue-glazed vase with Qianlong mark was included in 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, Taipei, 1986, no. 93. Another example illustrated by R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the
Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994, vol. 2, no. 923, was subsequently sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong,
4 April 2012, lot 6. See, also, the example from the Grandidier Collection in the Musée Guimet, Paris,
illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World’s Great Collections, vol. 7, Tokyo, 1982, no. 184; and another
included in An Exhibition of Important Chinese Ceramics from the Robert Chang Collection, Christie’s
London, 1993, no. 49.
清乾隆 仿鈞釉瓶耳燈籠瓶 六字篆書刻款

(another view)
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