Page 168 - CHRISTIE'S Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art 09/14 - 15 / 17

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AN EXTREMELY RARE PAIR OF IMPERIAL CLOISONNÉ ENAMEL
PRICKET CANDLESTICKS

QIANLONG INCISED FOUR-CHARACTER MARKS WITHIN DOUBLE SQUARES AND
OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)
Each candlestick has a slightly domed disk base superbly enameled with lotus scroll on a bright turquoise
ground encircling a smaller band of stylized fowerheads around the central baluster-form shaft decorated
with bands of detached fowerheads, foliate scrolls and pendant and upright petal lappets supporting two
drip-pans, the larger inscribed with an imperial poem followed by a bingwu cyclical date corresponding to
1786, succeeded by two seals, Guxi tianzi and Youri zizi.
15º in. (39.5 cm.) high
$200,000-300,000

PROVENANCE

The O’Rourke-Palmer Collection, Ireland, acquired in 1968 and thence by descent.
The two seals following the poems may be loosely translated as “the Son of Heaven in his 70s” and
“working diligently day after day.”
The drip-pans of these extremely rare candlesticks are inscribed with a poem of fve-character verse by
the Qianlong Emperor, published in Qing Gaozong Yuzhi Shiwen Quanji (An Anthology of Imperial Poetry
and Prose Composed by Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty), wuji, juan 29, p. 27, under the title, Ti hetianyu
shuangyu xi (Inscribing the Khotan Jade Double-fsh Washer). It expressed Qianlong’s antiquarianism
taste as the double-fsh motif is based on Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) prototypes.
清乾隆 御製掐絲琺瑯御題詩燭臺一對 《乾隆年製》楷書刻款

(marks)

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