CHINA, QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG SIX-CHARACTER SEAL MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)

Hu-form vases with stylized mask handles suspending fixed rings were made in the Yongzheng (1723-1735) and Qianlong periods (1736-1795). A Qianlong-period Ru-type vase of larger size (48.7 cm.), but of similar shape, is in the Nanjing Museum, and illustrated in The Official Kiln Porcelain of the Chinese Qing Dynasty, Shanghai, 2003, p. 329. A Yongzheng-marked example with a teadust glaze in the collection of Lord Cunliffe is illustrated by S. Jenyns in Later Chinese Porcelain, London, 1951, pl. CIV 2, and also included in the Oriental Ceramic Society exhibition, The Ceramic Art of China, London, 1951, pl. 164, no. 242, where the heads on the handles are called elephant heads. Another vase of this form with a Qianlong mark, decorated in underglaze blue with flower scroll on the body and neck between decorative borders, in the Huaihaitang Collection, is illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, Ethereal Elegance, Art Museum, Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 11 November 2007 - 30 March 2008, pp. 296-97, no. 101. Another Qianlong-marked soft-paste porcelain vase of this latter type, with archaistic relief decoration under a white glaze, is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and illustrated by S. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1988, p. 264, no. 268.