1 More

4 More

ƒ: In addition to the regular Buyer’s premium, a c… Read more

PROPERTY FROM A PRINCELY COLLECTIONChristie’s is delighted to present a selection of exquisite glass vessels from the Han dynasty to the Qing dynasty formerly owned by the great American collectors and philanthropists Walter and Phyllis Shorenstein. The Shorenstein’s renowned collection of Chinese glass was assembled with the scholarly help of the late Dr Clarence Shangraw and many pieces, including ten of the glass vessels here, were exhibited and published by C.F. Shangraw and C. Brown in A Chorus of Colors: Chinese Glass from Three American Collections, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 1995. Phyllis Shorenstein was a founder of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and throughout a 20-year period she and her husband donated many fine examples of art from China, Japan, and other Asian countries to the museum. Their collection of glass was later sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, on 1 December 2010, Luminous Colours: Treasures from the Shorenstein Collection, and it is from this sale that these pieces were acquired. Glass has been made in China since the Bronze Age and this group includes several rare and early examples from the Han, Tang and Liao dynasties. During the Qing dynasty Chinese glass reached its apogee, due in considerable measure to the establishment by the Kangxi Emperor of the Imperial Glass Works, that came under the administration of the Zaobanchu, the Department of Palace Supply, within the Imperial Household Department. Central to the establishment of this glass works was a German Jesuit missionary, Father Kilian Stumpf (1655-1720), whose Chinese name was Ji Li’an. Stumpf sailed to China in 1691 arriving in Macau in 1694. His skills in working with glass reached the Emperor who summoned him to Beijing and in 1696 installed him as the Director of the Imperial Glass Works. In addition to Stumpf and other European Jesuits including the Flemish Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688), the Imperial Glass Works employed Chinese glass workers who would have been drawn from China’s two well-established centres of glass production: Boshan, in Shandong province, where glass had been produced since the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368; and Guangdong. The combination of indigenous Chinese glass craftsmanship with techniques brought to China through the Jesuits, resulted in spectacular glass being made in the Imperial Glass Works in the reigns of the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Emperors. The Shorensteins were particularly drawn to glass from this period for the clarity of the colours produced, the skill inherit in the manufacture, and the many innovative designs, features which can be clearly seen in these glass vessels.

RARE COUPE EN VERRE BLEU TRANSLUCIDE

CHINE, DYNASTIE HAN (206 AV. JC.-220 AP. JC.)

Details

RARE COUPE EN VERRE BLEU TRANSLUCIDE
CHINE, DYNASTIE HAN (206 AV. JC.-220 AP. JC.)
Les côtés évasés puis allant en se rétrécissant, la coupe est simplement ornée à mi-hauteur de trois bagues en creux. Le col aux bord légèrement évasés. Le verre est d'une jolie teinte bleu turquoise.
Diamètre: 7,7 cm. (3 in.)

Provenance

Christie's New York, 1 December 1994, lot 350.
Collection of Walter and Phyllis Shorenstein.
Christie's Hong Kong, Luminous Colours: Treasures from the Shorenstein Collection, 1 December 2010, lot 2902.

Literature

B. Borrell,Trade and Glass Vessels Along the Maritime Silk Road
B. Zorn (ed.), Glass Along the Silk Road, from 200 BC to AD 1000, International Conference, Mainz, 11-12 December 2008, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz, Fig 10, p.134.

Special notice

ƒ: In addition to the regular Buyer’s premium, a commission of 5.5% inclusive of VAT of the hammer price will be charged to the buyer. It will be refunded to the Buyer upon proof of export of the lot outside the European Union within the legal time limit. (Please refer to section VAT refunds)

Further details

A VERY RARE EARLY TRANSLUCENT AQUA GLASS CUP
CHINA, HAN DYNASTY (206 BC - 220 AD)

Brought to you by

Tiphaine Nicoul Head of department

tnicoul@christies.com +33 (0)1 40 76 83 75

Lot Essay

This cup is an early example of blown glass in China and its shape is probably based on foreign examples brought into China during the Han dynasty. It may be compared with the green glass cup of similar form and slightly smaller size (5.8 cm. diam.) illustrated by Fan Shimin and Zhou Baozhong, "Some Glass in the Museum of Chinese History", R.H. Brill and J.H. Martin (eds.), Scientific Research in Early Chinese Glass, The Corning Museum of Glass, 1991, p. 196, fig. 5. The authors describe the glass cup as a foreign import, as chemical analysis showed that it did not contain lead, but is a potash-lime-silica glass.

More from Art d'Asie

View All