QIANLONG INCISED SIX-CHARACTER SEAL MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)

The form of the present vase is inspired by archaic bronze vessels from the late Western Zhou period. Vases of this form with different decoration and glaze were appreciated during the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods. 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.

The present vase can be compared to a white-glazed soft-paste porcelain vase of similar form from the Qianlong period in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrated by S. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, pl. 268.