Page 266 - Important Chinese Art Hong Kong Sotheby's April 2017

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A COPPER-RED AND UNDERGLAZE-BLUE 清十八世紀 青花釉裏紅牡丹雙鳳紋方壺
VASE, FANGHU
QING DYNASTY, 18TH CENTURY 來源：
Robert C. Bruce（1898-1953年）收藏
finely painted on the front and back with a pair of swooping 倫敦蘇富比1953年5月12日，編號131
phoenix in bright copper red, amidst a peony meander of red W.A. Evill 收藏
blooms and underglaze-blue leafy stems, the sides decorated 倫敦蘇富比1980年12月17日，編號640
with a similar floral design, the neck flanked by a pair of 香港蘇富比1989年5月17日，編號223
animal-mask and mock ring handles, all between ruyi and 香港蘇富比2006年4月10日，編號1680
lappet bands at the rim and base, the foot encircled with a
pendent leaf band 出版：
15.5 cm, 6⅛ in. Soame Jenyns，《Later Chinese Porcelain》，倫
敦，1951年，圖版LXXXVI，圖2b
PROVENANCE

Collection of Robert C. Bruce (1898-1953).
Sotheby’s London, 12th May 1953, lot 131.
Collection of W.A. Evill.
Sotheby’s London, 17th December 1980, lot 640.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 17th May 1989, lot 223.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 10th April 2006, lot 1680.

LITERATURE

Soame Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain, London, 1951, pl.
LXXXVI, fig. 2b.

HK$ 800,000-1,200,000

US$ 104,000-155,000

Another vase from the Bruce Collection, now in the City Art
Gallery, Bristol, of the same design but decorated in famille-
rose enamels and underglaze blue and with a Qianlong seal
mark, was sold in our London rooms, 12th May 1953, lot 129,
and is illustrated in Soame Jenyns, ibid., pl. LXXVI, fig. 2a,
together with the present unmarked vase. See also a vase
of similar form, sold at Christie’s London, 12th December
1988, lot 327. Qianlong vases of this type are also known from
copper-red decorated examples; see one with a Qianlong seal
mark, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the
Palace Museum: Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed
Red (III), Shanghai, 2000, pl. 176; another sold in our Hong
Kong rooms, 29th November 1978, lot 281; and one sold in our
London rooms, 12th June 2003, lot 183.

The decoration of a pair of flying phoenix confronting a
‘flaming pearl’ above a peony bloom may be found on Qianlong
mark and period wares of different shape; for example, see a
moonflask from the Matsuoka Art Museum, Tokyo, illustrated
in Sekai toji zenshu/Ceramic Art of the World, vol. 15, Tokyo,
1983, pls 92-3. Vases of this form were also decorated with
dragons, as seen on the vase sold at Christie’s Hong Kong,
30th April 2000, lot 600, painted in puce and underglaze-blue
enamels.

Porcelain vases of this type may have been inspired by
contemporary jade examples; see a finely carved white
jade vase of this shape and same design of two phoenixes
and flowers, attributed to the Qianlong period and from the
collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included
in the exhibition The Refined Taste of the Emperor: Special
Exhibition of Archaic and Pictorial Jades of the Ch’ing Court,
National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1996, cat. no. 25.

264 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比