Page 308 - Christies Fine Chinese Works of Art March 2016 New York

VARIOUS PROPERTIES

1593

A BLUE AND WHITE MING-STYLE EWER AND
COVER
QIANLONG SIX-CHARACTER SEAL MARK IN
UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-
1795)

The ewer is fnely painted in shades of blue with
a quatrefoil panel on each side, one enclosing
a fowering and fruiting peach spray, the other
with a leafy branch bearing loquat fruits, all
surrounded by scrolling peony, chrysanthemum
and camellia, and fanked by the arched strap
handle surmounted by a small loop and the
curved spout joined to the neck with a cloud-
shaped strut.

11√ in. (29.2 cm.) high

$200,000-300,000

PROVENANCE

Private collection, Paris, acquired in the frst half
of the 20th century.

The attractive design on the present ewer can be
traced back to the Yongle period, as can be seen on a
ewer of almost identical shape and design, excavated
from the Yongle stratum in Jingdezhen and illustrated
in Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain excavated at
Jingdezhen, Taipei, 1996, pl. 59. For another Yongle
ewer, similarly decorated but with quatrefoil panels
enclosing peach branches on both sides, see ibid., pl.
58. The shape of the ewers can be dated back even
earlier to the Hongwu period. A Hongwu copper-red-
decorated ewer of identical shape, painted around
the body with a composite foral scroll, in the Percival
David Foundation Collection is illustrated by R. Scott,
Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art: A Guide to
the Collection, London, 1989, fg. 59.

Several Qianlong-marked ewers of this form and
design have been published. One, also with a cover,
is in the Beijing Palace Museum and illustrated by
Geng Baochang, Mingqing Ciqi Jianding, fg. 178;
another covered example, formerly in the Dr. K.S. Lo
Collection and now in the Hong Kong Museum of Art,
is illustrated in The Wonders of the Potter’s Palette,
Hong Kong, 1984, no. 64; one example without a
cover, in the Shanghai Museum is illustrated by Lu
Minghua, Qingdai qinghua ciqi jianshang, Shanghai,
1996, fg. 17; one with a cover in the National Palace
Museum, is illustrated in Blue-and-White Ware of the
Ch’ing Dynasty, Book II, Hong Kong, 1968, pl. 14; and
one without a cover, in the Topkapi Saray Museum, is
illustrated by R. Krahl and J. Ayers, Chinese Ceramics
in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, vol. II, London,
1986, no. 2565.

Another Qianlong example, without a cover, from the
Meiyintang Collection, was sold at Sotheby’s Hong
Kong, 4 April 2012, lot 28.
清乾隆 青花花果紋執壺 六字篆書款

306