Page 136 - Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings, Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets

1942.9-540 (C-393)
Vase

Qing dynasty, late eighteenth/early nineteenth century
l
Porcelain with apple-green glaze, 21.6 x 12.7 (S/2 x 5)
Widener Collection
TECHNICAL NOTES
The globular body of this vase is set on a tall, spreading pedestal- it lacks the distinctive raised spreading foot and stepped
1
like foot and has a flaring, trumpeted neck. These three seg- base seen in the National Gallery example. A blue-glazed
ments were luted together, and the joints can be felt. The vase, Qianlong mark and period, supported on a similar
unusual base is recessed in two steps from the wedge-cut foot- splayed foot might also be considered. Somewhat closer
2
ring and is covered with a pale blue-gray crackled glaze. The in form, but still lacking the high spreading foot and
foot-ring is unglazed. The same glaze is visible in the upper part stepped base, is a yellow-glazed vase of the Jiaqing period
of the vessel's interior, but the lower portion is covered with a 3
colorless glaze. The enamel covering the underlying blue-gray (1796-1820) in the National Palace Museum, Taipei.
glaze on the exterior is a fresh grass green. A few dark spots are The shape of this vase, with its three distinct segments,
scattered on the surface. Both the base glaze and the enamel end differs from the fluid and elegant forms most often seen
in fairly neat lines at the foot and at the mouth. There are some in Kangxi- and Yongzheng-period monochromes as
thin, dark, ribbonlike areas at the foot where the underlying exemplified by those so marked and/or attributed in the
glaze apparently did not completely cover or pulled away from National Gallery collection, whether delicate peach-
the clay body. There is no glaze at the top of the mouth rim, bloom, celadon, pale blue, or more sturdy oxblood vases.
which has a smooth finish, a characteristic not seen elsewhere in None of the National Gallery's vases exhibits this charac-
the National Gallery collection. The crackle on the neck is larger teristic. Indeed, this shape seems more typical of those
and somewhat darker than on the rest of the vessel. seen in later eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Chinese
ceramics, which accounts for its dating.
PROVENANCE
Richard Bennett, Northampton, England; sold 1914 to (Gorer, VB
London); (Dreicer & Co., New York, agent of Gorer, London);
sold 1914 to Peter A. B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, NOTES
Pennsylvania; inheritance from Estate of Peter A. B. Widener by 1. Ceramic Society 1951, 58, no. 145, pi. 27, top row.
gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, 2. The Edward T. Chow Collection Part One: Catalogue of Ming
Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. and Qing Porcelain, sale, Sotheby's, New York, 25 November
1980,101, lot 84, repro.
3. Ts'ao 1981, 83, no. 35, repro.
MONG PUBLISHED APPLE-GREEN WARES, no vessel very
A similar to this vase has been found. A more pear-
shaped vase, attributed to the eighteenth century, might REFERENCES
be considered a comparison; its neck is quite similar, but 1911 Gorer: 71, no. 352.

120 D E C O R A T I V E A R T S