A FINE AND VERY RARE CARVED CELADON-GLAZED BALUSTER VASE

Details

A FINE AND VERY RARE CARVED CELADON-GLAZED BALUSTER VASE
QIANLONG CARVED SIX-CHARACTER SEALMARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1735-1796)

The high shouldered jar deftly carved with a multitude of chilong dragons and phoenix, their sinuous bodies highly stylised with raised bosses terminating in curled tendrils, each mythical animal in a slightly different attitude, the short slightly flared neck rising to a lipped rim encircled by a wan emblem border, the waisted base with a further border of overlapping lotus panels, the glaze of a rich olive-green tone pooling in the recesses to highlight the carving, the reign mark neatly carved on the underside base
10 1/4 in. (26 cm.) diam., Japanese wood box

Provenance

A Japanese private collection

Exhibited

Min Xin No Bijutsu, Osaka Municipal Museum, Heibunsha, Februrary 1982, no. 179

Lot Essay

Vases of this form and decoration are extremely rare; this appears to be the only example known.

The current vase, with its crisply carved mark, can best be compared to another carved celadon jar from the Fonthill Heirlooms (no. 643) purchased from the Lord Loch of Drylaw, subsequently in the collection of Lord Margadale of Islay, formed by Alfred Morrison, sold in our London Rooms, 18 October 1971, lot 51, and later sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 17 May 1988, lot 75. Compare also to the elaborate vase illustrated by John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in The Baur Collection, volume 2, Geneva, 1979, fig. 295 (no. A385), with a similar treatment of the wings of the bat, a very similar mark and the glaze of a related deep tone.

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