Page 66 - Lieber Collection Chinese Art

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A FINE TEADUST-GLAZED BOTTLE VASE, QIANLONG SEAL MARK AND PERIOD, the compressed
globular body rising from the splayed foot to a long cylindrical neck, richly covered overall with a lustrous, mottled olive-green glaze
subtly flecked with gold tones, the foot ring dressed in a dark brown wash, the base incised with a six-character seal mark reserved in a
square and applied with a mottled brown glaze

⌲Ϋ䮳 㡣㥶᱘䛶㢥㫧⨣
Ȩ๔⌲Ϋ䮳Ꭱ㸪ȩ
Height 13 in., 33 cm
$ 60,000-80,000

PROVENANCE ҳ⎽
Ralph M. Chait Galleries, New York. Ralph M Chait Galleries喑㈽㈱
೏
The present vase is notable for its lustrous and rich ‘tea dust’ glaze, representing the technical perfection achieved by the
potters working in the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen at the time. This type of glaze, which was exclusively for imperial
consumption, was successfully achieved under the supervision of the great Tang Ying (1682-1756), Superintendent of the
Imperial kilns during the Yongzheng (r. 1723-1735) and Qianlong (r. 1736-1795) reigns. The flecked olive-green tone was
created in the course of high-temperature firing, during which the yellow crystals in the glaze precipitated to contrast
against the dark green ground, consequently producing the tea-dust effect.
A pair of closely related vases preserved in the Seikado Bunko Museum, Tokyo, was included in the Museum’s exhibition,
Seikado zo Shincho toji. Keitokuchin kanyo no bi [Qing porcelain collected in the Seikado. Beauty of the Jingdezhen
imperial kilns], Tokyo, 2006, cat. no. 109; one from the Meiyintang Collection, is illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese
Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 936; and another, but with a pale rim, from
the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is published in Rose Kerr, Chinese Ceramics. Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty
1644-1911, London, 1986, pl. 25. Further Qianlong marked tea-dust glazed vases of this type include one recently sold in
rd
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our Hong Kong rooms, 3 October 2017, lot 3665; another in these rooms, 13 September 2017, lot 24; and a third sold at
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Christie’s New York, 17 March 2017, lot 1245. Compare also one from the T.Y. Chao Collection, sold in our Hong Kong
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rooms, 19 May 1987, lot 294, and again at Christie’s New York, 20 March 1997, lot 128.

64 SOTHEBY’S