YONGZHENG SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE WITHIN A DOUBLE CIRCLE AND OF THE PERIOD (1723-1735)

Compare the current vase to a very similar yellow and green enamelled Yongzheng vase in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing, also decorated with clouds and flowers but without bats, illustrated in Selected Porcelain of the Flourishing Qing Dynasty at the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1994, p. 197. In addition to this, see a yellow-ground famille rose Yongzheng bowl with a similar design of bats and clouds, also in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Porcelains with Cloisonne Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, 1999, Hong Kong, p. 95, no. 83. For Yongzheng examples in blue and white with the same shape as the current vase, see two vases in the Palace Museum in Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (III), 2000, Hong Kong, pp. 91-92, nos. 77-78.

Porcelain enamelled in yellow and green, as seen on this lot, was produced in the imperial kilns of Jingdezhen as early as the 15th century. For excavated examples of yellow-ground green-enamelled dishes dating to the Xuande period (1425-1436), see Xuande Imperial Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1998, p. 78, no. 73. The combination of bats and clouds on the current vase provide the wishing for good fortune, as the word 'bat', fu, is homophonous with 'blessings' and the word 'clouds', yun, is a pun for 'fortune'.