Page 300 - Christies King St. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART

Vase in situ, in Europe, 21 February 1992
1992年2月21日攝於歐洲

342

A VERY RARE CLAIRE-DE-LUNE-GLAZED BOTTLE VASE
YONGZHENG SIX-CHARACTER SEAL MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD
(1723-1735)

清雍正 天青釉撇口瓶 六字篆書款

The vase is skilfully potted with a baluster body rising to a cylindrical neck and a dished mouth, raised on
a domed foot. The vessel is covered overall in a smooth pale blue glaze. The neck is further decorated with
two concentric bands.

7√ in. (20 cm.) high

£80,000-120,000 $130,000-180,000
€110,000-160,000

PROVENANCE: (mark)

With P. C. Lu, Hong Kong.
From a private European collection, acquired in 1992.
With Vallin Galleries, Connecticut.

It has been suggested that the shape of this vase is based on an earlier prototype such as a holy
water bottle. Porcelain vessels of this shape are known from the Yongle period (1403-1424) onwards.
A fragmentary holy water jar measuring 27 cm. high was excavated from the Yongle-period strata at
Zhushan, see Ceramic Finds from Jingdezhen Kilns, Hong Kong, 1992, fg. 201. Another similar example
dated to the Xuande period (1426-1435), with a tapering body and splayed foot, decorated with fower-
sprays and petal bands, is illustrated in Zhongguo Taoci Quanji, The Great Treasury of Chinese Ceramics,
vol. 19, Shanghai, 1983, fg. 12.

This shape became popular during the Yongzheng period when archaism was favoured at the Imperial
court, and earlier ceramics and bronzes became readily available in Beijing as models for potters. A
Yongzheng-marked vase of closely related shape to the current lot, with a crackled glaze imitating Guan
ware, is illustrated by J. Ayers in The Baur Collection, vol. III, Geneva, 1969, no. A348, which the author
suggests may be imitating an earlier Song or Ming bronze type. A Yongzheng mark and period vase
decorated with a rich fambé glaze is in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing, illustrated in The
Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum – 37 – Monochrome Porcelain, Hong Kong, 1999,
p. 198, pl. 179.

The current vase is particularly rare as no other example with the same shape, size and glaze appears
to have been ofered at auction before. Compare a vase of similar shape but of a diferent size and
decorated with a fambé glaze from the Robert Chang Collection and formerly in the Winkworth
Collection, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 2 November 1999, lot 512.

來源: 香港古董商P.C. Lu；歐洲私人舊藏，購於1992年；美國康涅狄格州古
董商Vallin Galleries

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