Page 155 - Metropolitan Museum Collection September 2016

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AN UNDERGLAZE COPPER-RED AND BLUE
‘MALLET’ VASE, YAOLING ZUN

KANGXI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF
THE PERIOD (1662-1722)

The high-shouldered body is fnely painted in copper red with
four circular medallions in the form of archaistic mirrors positioned
above a band of upright blades rising from a herringbone band
divided and outlined by fne lines in pale underglaze blue, beneath
the tall, slightly waisted neck which rises from a bow-string band at
its base.
9 in. (22.7 cm.) high

$6,000-8,000

PROVENANCE

Robert West Collection.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accessioned
in 1950.

The elegant form of this vase, with its long, slender, slightly
waisted neck rising from pronounced shoulders, is particularly
associated with the Kangxi reign. In Chinese the name often
given to this form is yaoling zun, or ‘hand bell vase’. The reference
is to bronze bells, which formed part of the repertoire of Chinese
instruments used in formal secular and religious music, although
pottery bells of similar, if less refned form, were made in China
as early as the Neolithic period.

Vases of this form appear decorated both in underglaze cobalt
blue and also, like the current example, in underglaze copper red
with underglaze-blue lines encircling the base. Both types have
underglaze-blue six-character Kangxi marks. An underglaze-
blue example in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing
is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace
Museum - 36 - Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (III),
Hong Kong, 2000, p. 15, no. 11. An underglaze copper-red-
decorated yaoling zun in the collection of the Tianjin Museum
is illustrated in Porcelains from the Tianjin Municipal Museum, Hong
Kong, 1993, no. 130. Another copper-red example is in the
collection of the Shanghai Museum, and illustrated in Kangxi
Porcelain Wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection, Hong Kong,
1998, pp. 10-11, no. 7.

清康熙 青花釉裏紅團花鋸齒紋搖鈴尊 三行六字楷書款

來源
Robert West 珍藏。
紐約大都會藝術博物館，入藏於1950年。

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