Page 71 - Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings, Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets

1972.43-31 (C-586)
Bottle Vase

Qing dynasty, late eighteenth century
Porcelain with oxblood glaze, 23.8 x 13.3 (9% x 5*/4)
Harry G. Steele Collection, Gift of Grace C. Steele

INSCRIPTIONS
Spuriously inscribed in standard script on the base with an
incised mark in two columns of two characters each: Xuande
nian zhi [made in the reign of Xuande]

TECHNICAL NOTES
Bubbles are scattered throughout the glaze surface. The glaze
pulls away from the vessel's lip. The interior has a colorless
glaze. The roughly trimmed foot-ring has several chips and
reveals a white paste burned slightly orange. The recessed base
has a colorless glaze.

PROVENANCE
(Yamanaka, Chicago); sold to Harry G. Steele [1881-1941],
Pasadena; his widow, Grace C. Steele.

ASED ON A KANGXI BOTTLE VASE, this vessel is more
Battenuated than its model. 1 The glaze covers the
entire exterior surface with a deep, uniform red color.
The incised four-character mark is clearly spurious, as
the oxblood (langyao) glaze was not developed until the
early Qing-dynasty reign of Kangxi. In addition, the
shape of this vase first appeared in the Qianlong period
and does not occur among Ming porcelains.
SL
NOTES
i. For a prototype from the Kangxi period, see Min Chiu 1977,
pi. 4.

foot-ring and reignmark on base of 1972.43.31

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