Page 39 - Important Chinese Art Hong Kong April 2, 2019 Sotheby's

This vase is a true technical masterpiece that exemplifies the
great advances made at the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen in
response to the Qianlong Emperor’s insatiable demand for
novelties. Revolving vases were the last great innovation of
Tang Ying (1682-1756), Superintendent of the Imperial kilns
in Jingdezhen in the early years of the Qianlong reign, who
applied his talent and skills with tremendous dedication to
design and manufacture vessels for the personal enjoyment
of the Emperor. Aware of the Qianlong Emperor’s penchant
for mechanical trinkets and toys, Tang created ever more
ingenious wares.
Vases with movable parts are highly complex in both
their construction and decoration and involved numerous
techniques and production processes. They were an
extraordinary challenge for the potters, as each element
of their required the utmost mastery in designing, glazing
and enamelling to ensure they perfectly fitted together. The
present example is remarkably successful in its dramatic
combination of an opaque tea-dust glaze with the luxurious
palette at the neck and foot, and the detailed elephant-head
handles.
A revolving vase of similar form and size, but with the main
body covered in a robin’s-egg glaze and the neck painted
with flowers against a ruby ground, was sold in these rooms,
8th April 2011, lot 3072. A non-revolving vase of this form,
perhaps a precursor to the present example, also with a
robin’s-egg glazed centre, is illustrated in S.W. Bushell,
Oriental Ceramic Art, London, 1981 (1896), pl. 108; and
another was sold in our New York rooms, 31st May 1989, lot
202.
The possibilities presented by the revolving mechanism
were also explored on bowls, such as one which rotates
around a similarly shaped ruyi-moulded foot, in the National
Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the Museum’s exhibition
Stunning Decorative Porcelains from the Ch’ien-lung Reign,
Taipei, 2008, cat. no. 63.

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