KANGXI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD (1662-1722)

It is rare to find a vase of this shape and decoration from the Kangxi period. Large vases of this shape and style are more commonly found with landscape illustrations and poetic verses from the ‘Odes to the Red Cliff’. One example in the Shanghai Museum is illustrated in Kangxi Porcelain Wares, Hong Kong, 1998, pp. 42 and 43, pl. 31 and another similar vase is illustrated by Julia Curtis, Chinese Porcelains of the Seventeenth Century, New York, 1995, p. 84, no. 26. Three further similar examples from the famous Butler Family Collection, two of which with Kangxi marks, are illustrated by Sir Michael Butler, 'Chinese Porcelain at the Beginning of Qing', Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society 1984-1985, London, 1986, pls. 38 - 40, and discussed pp. 33-36, where the author suggests they belong to a group of porcelain produced before the establishment of the Imperial kilns in Jingdezhen.