Page 9 - Sotheby's Asia Week March 2024 Chinee Art

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PROPERTY FROM THE STUART AND BARBARA HILBERT 清乾隆 青花纏枝蓮紋燭臺 《乾隆年製》款
COLLECTION
A BLUE AND WHITE ‘LOTUS’ CANDLESTICK, 來源：
SEAL MARK AND PERIOD OF QIANLONG Geo E. McCague (1858-1926) 收藏，得於1903年
the base with a four-character seal script mark in underglaze 辛辛那提私人收藏
blue within a double circle
Height 6½ in., 16.5 cm
PROVENANCE
Collection of Geo E. McCague (1858-1926), acquired in 1903.
Cincinnati Private Collection.
According to a court record, in the second month of the
ninth year of the Qianlong period (1744), the Emperor
instructed two eunuchs to send to Tang Ying, the
superintendent of the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen, a blue
and white inscribed ‘reading lamp’ as a model, together with
a poem written by the Emperor, in order to fire a few reading
lamps in underglaze blue or ‘foreign colors’ (famille-rose),
both in varying sizes. The calligraphy of the sample lamp
was to be replaced by his own poem, or, for candlesticks
intended as altar pieces, such as the present lot, the poem
was to be omitted, see Tang Ying du tao wendang [Archive
on Tang Ying’s Supervision of the Imperial Kilns], Beijing,
2012, p. 162. Interestingly, this group of candlesticks
specially ordered by the Emperor himself, including the
present, all have a unusual Qianlong mark that is rarely seen
on other pieces.
A closely related candlestick, also similarly decorated with
a band of lappets to the middle pan instead of Qianlong’s
poem, formerly in the collection of Dr. Ip Lee, was included in
the exhibition Chinese Blue and White Porcelain and Related
Underglaze Red, Oriental Ceramic Society, Hong Kong, 1975,
cat. no. 110; another in the Coles Collection, was included in
Blue and White Porcelain, Oriental Ceramic Society, London,
1954, cat. no. 310; a third, was sold in our Paris rooms,
10th December 2019, lot 12. For other candlesticks, with
similar marks, but inscribed with the Emperor’s imperial
poem, intended to be used as reading lamps, see two in the
National Palace Museum, Taipei (accession nos
故瓷008897N000000000 and 故瓷008896N000000000);
and two others in the Palace Museum, Beijing (accession nos
故00152885 and 故00160317-1/51).
$ 30,000-50,000

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