Page 160 - Christie's Asia Week March 2024 Chinese Art

IMPORTANT CHINESE ART INCLUDING THE COLLECTION OF DOROTHY TAPPER GOLDMAN

Another Property
ⱷ963
A VERY RARE BLUE-GLAZED POMEGRANATE- 清雍正 藍釉⊅榴尊 雙१Ս字楷書款
FORM VASE Ϝ源
YONGZHENG SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE WITHIN 香港蘇富比，1994年5月4日，拍品編號88
A DOUBLE CIRCLE AND OF THE PERIOD (1723-1735)
7¿ in. (18 cm.) high
$100,000-150,000
PROVENANCE:
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 4 May 1994, lot 88.

Fruit and flowers served as inspiration to the Qing-dynasty potters,
with the natural shapes translated into both porcelain shapes and other
decorations laden with hidden meanings. A well-known emblem of
fertility and numerous progeny, the pomegranate is also a pun on the
character zi, which means "seed" or "offspring." Introduced to China in
the Tang dynasty, the pomegranate appears as a decorative motif as
prolifically as the peach, the emblem of longevity, but is perhaps better
suited in proportion and shape to serve as a small vase such as the
present rare example.
This attractive and easy-to-handle form appears to have been produced
with a variety of well-applied monochrome glazes in the Yongzheng
reign. A similar vase covered with a crackled celadon glaze, with a
Yongzheng mark, is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and is
illustrated in Catalog of the Special Exhibition of K'ang-Hsi, Yung-
Cheng and Ch'ien-Lung Porcelain Ware from the Ch'ing Dynasty in
the National Palace Museum, 1986, p. 93, no. 62. (Fig. 1) A teadust-
glazed example with a Yongzheng mark, in the Musée Guimet, Paris,
is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, Vol.
7, Tokyo, 1981, no. 47 and a Yongzheng-marked example covered in a
flambé glaze, in the National Museum of China, Beijing, is illustrated
in Zhongguo guojia bowuguan guancang wenwu yanjiu congshu - ciqi
juan - Qing dai, Shanghai, 2007, p. 95, no. 61.

Fig. 1 Pomegranate-shaped vase in celadon glaze, Yongzheng mark and (base)
period, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 故瓷015633N000000000.
圖ˏ 粉青⊅榴尊，清雍正，४⒤故宮博ḵ院，館藏編號故瓷
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