Page 42 - 2019 OctoberSur Quo Wei Lee Collectim Important Chinese Art Hong Kong

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A CELADON AND RUSSET JADE ‘MAGNOLIA’ VASE
QING DYNASTY, 18TH CENTURY

清十八世紀 青白玉玉蘭花插

well worked as a tall magnolia bloom with layered petals
forming the walls of the vessel, the petals incised with veins
and rendered curled at the rim, the bloom further depicted
borne and supported on a gnarled branch issuing two smaller
budding magnolias flanking the vessel, the pale celadon stone
with icy inclusions and attractive russet patches, wood stand
13.9 cm, 5½ in.

HK$ 400,000-600,000
US$ 51,500-77,000

Magnolia, or yulan in Chinese, is an emblem of purity and is
a pictorial pun to represent the Chinese word for jade, yu.
Compare a related white jade vase in the form of a magnolia
blossom in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, illustrated in
The T.T. Tsui Galleries of Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 1996, cat.
no. 115; and another example sold in our New York rooms,
19th March 2007, lot 36.
A magnolia-form vase with a sprig of orchid can be seen in
the Qing dynasty painting Good News of Harvest from the
Qing court collection, now preserved in the National Palace
Museum, Taipei; for detail of the painting, see The Enchanting
Splendor of Vases and Planters: A Special Exhibition of Flower
Vessels from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Taipei, 2014, p.
233.