PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION 
A FINE UNDERGLAZE-BLUE AND COPPER-RED MOONFLASK

Details
A FINE UNDERGLAZE-BLUE AND COPPER-RED MOONFLASK
QIANLONG SEAL MARK AND OF THE PERIOD

Of flattened spherical shape with cylindrical neck flanked by handles and oval base, painted on each side in pale reddish-pink tones with a large five-clawed dragon arranged around a flaming pearl and turning full frontal, its eyes picked out in blue, surrounded by clouds above breaking waves around the base, minor frits at rim
15 1/2 in. (39.5 cm.) high, box
Provenance
The British Rail Pension Fund, sold in Hong Kong, 17 May 1989, lot 37.
Exhibited
On Loan to Fairfax House, York, England, 1985-1988.

Lot Essay

Sold in Hong Kong, 17 November 1975, lot 221.

The present example belongs to the rarer group of larger moonflasks of this design. Of these, only a small number are in perfect condition.

Cf. a flask of similar size in the Hong Kong Museum of Art which was included and illustrated in the Wonders of the Potter's Palette Exhibition, Catalogue, no. 66; and another illustrated by Marchant, 'Some Interesting pieces of Marked Ch'ing Porcelain', H.K.O.C.S. Bulletin, no. 3, 1977-78, figs. 50-53.

For the smaller versions, cf. the example from the Norton Collection sold in London, 5 November 1960, lot 200, now in the Art Gallery of New South Wales and included in their Exhibition of Chinese Ceramics, 1965, Catalogue, no. 116; and the Reitlinger Collection example, illustrated by Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain, pl. XCIV, fig. 1. Two others sold in our New York Rooms, 29 November 1990, lot 250 and in these Rooms, 31 October 1994, lot 601. Compare also the flask from the Edward T. Chow Collection of large size with the same decoration on a lime green enamel ground, and illustrated by Beurdeley and Raindre, Qing Porcelain, pl. 162.

(US$120,000-150,000)

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