Page 86 - Christies Fine Chinese Works of Art March 2016 New York

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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

$50,000-70,000

PROVENANCE (mark)

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 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

(interior)

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