Page 248 - Christie's Fine Chinese Paintings March 19 2019 Auction

VARIOUS PROPERTIES
1750
A VERY RARE GILT-DECORATED SEMI-OPAQUE WHITE GLASS BOWL
QIANLONG FOUR-CHARACTER GILT MARK WITHIN A DOUBLE SQUARE AND
OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)
The deep, rounded sides rise to a slightly everted rim and are decorated on the exterior with four of the
Eight Buddhist Emblems, the Wheel, the Canopy, the Conch and the Umbrella, in two tones of gold
surrounded by fower scroll with feathery leaves, and the interior is decorated with a fve-clawed dragon
protecting a faming pearl in the center below four further dragons racing with jaws wide open amidst
clouds in the well.
6Ω in. (16.4 cm.) diam., box
$25,000-35,000

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Sweden.
Bukowski’s, Stockholm, late 1990s.
The use of gold lacquer decoration on glass vessels appears to be quite rare. A pair of green glass bottle
vases decorated in gold lacquer with fower scroll is illustrated by C. Brown and D. Rabiner in Clear as
Crystal, Red as Flame, China Institute in America, New York, 1990, p. 62, no. 26. A pair of white glass
bowls decorated in gilding with chrysanthemum scroll on the exterior and interior, bearing Qianlong
marks within a double square, from the collection of Ira and Nancy Koger, sold at Sotheby’s New York,
27 November 1990, lot 50. Similar lacquer decoration can be seen on contemporaneous Qianlong jade
wares, such as the pair of tea bowls with covers in the Collection of Her Majesty Queen Mary, illustrated
by S. Nott in Chinese Jade Throughout the Ages, New York/London, 1937, pl. 1. The decoration on the
tea bowls is of dragons amidst foliate scroll, and the leaves on these bowls appear to have a feather-like
appearance similar to those on the exterior of the present bowl.
清乾隆 涅白地玻璃描金四寳紋盌 描金雙方框四字楷書款

(mark)

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