Page 231 - 2018 Hong Kong Important Chieese Art

Covered in a rich crushed-raspberry coloured glaze with
lavender streaks, wares of this type were highly favoured by
the Yongzheng Emperor who commissioned copies of Jun
wares to be produced at the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen. Also
known as yaobian (transmutation glaze), Tang Ying (1682-
1756), Superintendent of the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen,
recorded that potters were sent to Junzhou, Henan province
in the 7th year of the Yongzheng reign (1729) to investigate
the recipe for producing Jun glazes. Recent studies on flambé
glaze has revealed that this new recipe required the application
of a layer of copper-blue glaze with traces of lead, over a layer
of red glaze, which when fired created the striking streaks so
admired by the Emperor.
The form has its roots in archaic bronze hu vessels, and the
trend for archaism as initiated by the Emperor is evident in the
mask-head handles and raised ribs encircling the vase; see a
closely related example sold in our London rooms, 13th July
2005, lot 204. Vases of this type, also incised with Yongzheng
reign marks and of the period, were produced with slight
variations in form and decoration; one with a waisted neck and
collared mouthrim, from the Hall Family Collection, was sold
twice in these rooms, 2nd May 2000, lot 536, and 10th April
2006, lot 1604; another with a pair of loop handles suspending
a fixed buckle-shaped ring on the shoulder, was sold in these
rooms, 4th April 2012, lot 3107; and a vase with a rounded
body rising to a waisted and slightly flaring neck, the shoulders
moulded with handles and fixed rings suspending tassels, was
sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 25th October 1993, lot 805, and
again in these rooms, 7th October 2015, lot 3619.
For a prototype to the form of this vase, see a bronze hu
excavated in 1971 from a Western Han tomb dated to before
179 BC at Qianping, Yichang, Hubei province, illustrated in
‘Yichang qianping zhanguo lianghan mu [Warring States
and Han tombs in Qianping, Yichang]’, Kaogu xuebao/Acta
Archaeological Sinica, 1976, no. 2, p. 124, fig. 12.

IMPORTANT CHINESE ART 229