Page 112 - Chinese Works of Art Chritie's Mar. 22-23 2018

THE PROPERTY OF MARCHANT, EST. 1925
783
A FINE SMALL RU-TYPE FACETED HU-FORM VASE
QIANLONG SIX-CHARACTER SEAL MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE
AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)
The vase of well-potted octagonal section is supported on a conforming foot, the neck is fanked by a pair
of tubular lug handles, and the vase is covered inside and out in an even, opaque, pale-blue glaze stopping
short of the brown-dressed foot rim.
5Ω in. (14 cm.) high
$60,000-80,000

PROVENANCE
The Property of a Lady; Sotheby’s London, 11 December 1984, lot 426.
S. Marchant & Son, London.
Private collection, England.
S. Marchant & Son, London, 1991.
Kenneth Langsdorf Collection, St. Louis, Missouri, no. 215.
EXHIBITED
London, S. Marchant & Son, Exhibition of Qing Mark and Period Monochrome and Two-Coloured Wares,
7 - 26 June 1992.
LITERATURE
S. Marchant & Son, Exhibition of Qing Mark and Period Monochrome and Two-Coloured Wares,
London, 1992, p. 49, no. 35.
With its archaistic form, soft greyish-blue Ru-type glaze, and brown dressed foot, the current vase is
a deliberate homage to earlier prototypes, in particular archaic bronze hu vases, and Song dynasty
ceramics. Such archaism was a court-directed initiative in the eighteenth century, and archaic pieces
from the imperial collections were sent to Jingdezhen to be copied in porcelain: Tang Ying, the
Superintendent of the Imperial kilns at Jingdezhen, listed in Taocheng jishi bei ji (Commemorative
Stele on Ceramic Production) in the thirteenth year of the Yongzheng reign (1735), a number of glazes
in imitation of Song wares, including ‘moon-white, pale green and deep green, all copied from ancient
pieces sent from the Imperial Palace’.
Two Song dynasty hu-form vases which may have inspired the present vase, from the Qing Court
Collection, are illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 33 - Porcelain
of the Song Dynasty (II), Hong Kong, 1996, p. 45, no. 39 (with a Ge glaze), and p. 113, no. 101 (Longquan
ware, with a celadon glaze).

The National Palace Museum Collection has two examples of similar vases with Qianlong marks, each
inscribed on the base with an Imperial poem by the Qianlong Emperor, with lines indicating that these
vases functioned as receptacles for fowers (see Obtaining Refned Enjoyment: The Qianlong Emperor’s
Taste in Ceramics, Taipei, 2012, pl. 85, 86.). Two further Qianlong-marked examples are illustrated by R.
Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Vol. Two, London, 1994, p. 216, nos. 874-875,
and another pair from the J. M. Hu Collection was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 29 November 2017,
lot 2851.
清乾隆 仿汝釉貫耳小方壺 六字篆書款

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