Page 40 - Sotheby's Speelman Collection Oct. 3, 2018

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A CARVED IMPERIAL PURPLE 清乾隆

AVENTURINE GLASS 紫金星玻璃靈猴獻壽桃式洗
‘MONKEYS AND PEACH’

BRUSH WASHER
QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG

PERIOD

the vessel skilfully carved in the round as a hollow peach with
a bat on the wide incurved rim, the peach rendered issuing
from a gnarled branch on one side bearing leaves and two
attendant smaller peaches, two monkeys depicted seated
nimbly on the branch whilst facing one another, the smoothly
polished glittering glass of a rich purplish-blue colour with
mesmerising lighter streaks
11.6 cm, 4½ in.

HK$ 450,000-550,000
US$ 57,500-70,500

Aventurine glass vessels of this attractive purplish tinge are
rare, compared to the larger number of vessels in the typical
mottled brown colour. Several of these are illustrated in Zhang
Rong, Lustre of Autumn Water. Glass of the Qing Imperial
Workshop, Beijing, 2005, pls 94-100. In the introduction to
the catalogue, she expounds the history of aventurine glass at
the Qing court. Invented in Murano, it was imported into China
from the seventeenth century and much admired. By 1741,
the Jesuit missionary Pierre Nicolas d’Incarville is recorded as
having successfully created it at the Palace Workshops in the
Forbidden City.
An aventurine glass brushwasher in the form of a lotus leaf
from the Qing court collection is preserved in the Palace
Museum, Beijing, and illustrated in The Complete Collection
of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Small Refined Articles
of the Study, Shanghai, 2011, pl. 119. It is similarly conceived
and shares closely related treatment of the undulating stems,
especially to the underside.

38 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比