Page 205 - Sotheby's NYC September 21 2022 Important Chinese Art

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AN IRON-RED HOLY WATER VASE 清乾隆 礬紅彩折枝蓮紋甘露瓶
QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG PERIOD
Height 8¾ in., 22.2 cm
來源
香港蘇富比2020年11月27日，編號106 (其一)
PROVENANCE
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 27th November 2020, lot 106 (part lot).
A vase of this form and design can be seen in a painting by
Giuseppe Castiglione, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, showing
the Qianlong Emperor seated under a pine tree with a table
to his right set with several treasures from his collection. The
painting was included in the Palast-museum Peking Schätze
aus der Verbotenen Stadt, Berlin, 1985, cat. no. 41.
These holy water vases may have been produced as
offerings for the altar of a Tibetan Buddhist shrine in
the Forbidden City. While imperial porcelains are usually
inscribed with marks of the reigning emperors, exceptions
are not uncommon, especially for items used in Buddhist
ceremonies. In Feng Xianming, Annotated Collection of
Historical Documents on Ancient Chinese Ceramics, Taipei,
2000, p. 241, Feng discusses a court record that documents
the Qianlong Emperor decreeing marks not to be used on
some holy water bottles with iron-red designs made in the
11th year of his reign (1746). For a closely related vessel from
the Qing Court Collection, see one published in The Complete
Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Miscellaneous
Enameled Porcelains Plain Tricoloured Porcelains, Shanghai,
2009, pl. 29. For another example presented to Cheltenham
College, England, by Yuan Shikai in 1914, and now in the
Weishaupt Collection, see G. Avitabile, From the Dragon’s
Treasure, London, 1987, pl. 176. Compare also a pair of similar
holy water bottles sold at Christie’s London, 11th May 2010,
lot 248.
$ 20,000-30,000

202 SOTHEBY’S COMPLETE CATALOGUING AVAILABLE AT SOTHEBYS.COM/N11074 203