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Lot Essay
The current lot is remarkable in its well-balanced decoration and quality of enamelling. Of particular merit, is the way the lotus leaves are skillfully rendered - each leaf carefully delineated and with realistic veining and coloured with vivid tones of green enamel.
This vase is part of a well-known group of very finely enamelled wares from the Daoguang period, either bearing a seal mark in iron-red or a four-character hallmark, reading 'Shen de tang zhi'.
In fact, when inspected very closely, it appears the current vase indeed had a four-character mark in iron-red to the base, and based on the spacing of the characters, it could be Shen de tang zhi.
Shen de tang or 'Hall for the Cultivation of Virtue', was built within the Yuanmingyuan for the Daoguang Emperor, where he subsequently died.
Compare a vase of identical shape and enamelled in the same fine manner, bearing a four-character mark reading shen de tang zhi, from the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Porcelains with Cloisonne Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 213, pl. 188.
This vase is part of a well-known group of very finely enamelled wares from the Daoguang period, either bearing a seal mark in iron-red or a four-character hallmark, reading 'Shen de tang zhi'.
In fact, when inspected very closely, it appears the current vase indeed had a four-character mark in iron-red to the base, and based on the spacing of the characters, it could be Shen de tang zhi.
Shen de tang or 'Hall for the Cultivation of Virtue', was built within the Yuanmingyuan for the Daoguang Emperor, where he subsequently died.
Compare a vase of identical shape and enamelled in the same fine manner, bearing a four-character mark reading shen de tang zhi, from the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Porcelains with Cloisonne Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 213, pl. 188.