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Lot Essay
In the catalogue entry for this pair of vases in the exhibition, Selections of Chinese Art from Private Collections, it is noted that only two other pairs are known; one pair in the Palace Museum in Beijing and another pair in the Palace Museum, Shenyang, Liaoning.
This pair of meiping is related to a pair of baluster vases painted in the same style with similar dragons and clouds reserved on an opaque duck's-egg blue ground between bands of waves, and with a similar band of ruyi heads below the mouth rim, illustrated by E. Gorer and J.F. Blacker, Les Porcelaines et les Pierres Dures Chinoises, London, 1911, pl. 188, where it is noted that they are from the Imperial Palace, Peking. A single vase similar to this latter pair was sold in our London rooms, 16 December 1996, lot 12.
Compare, also, the pear-shaped vase with Qianlong iron-red seal mark, where a single large iron-red dragon molded in high relief is applied around the sides amidst multicolored clouds similar to those on the present examples, illustrated by R. Soame Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain, London, 1951, pl. CVII (2), and later sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 28 April 1996, lot 55. As with the present pair there is a ruyi-head band at the gilded mouth rim and the decoration is reserved on a rich, opaque ground, this time of turquoise color. Another related but larger (45.7cm.) baluster vase painted in similar opaque enamels of bright tone with large, mature, scaly dragons amidst larger formations of multicolored vapor clouds reserved on a turquoise ground, and also with a Qianlong seal mark in iron red, was included in the exhibition, Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1990, illustrated by J. Spencer in the Catalogue, p. 372, no. 167. This vase also has a wavy band of multicolored lappets at the base, but the lappets are narrower and have a more striped appearance.
This pair of meiping is related to a pair of baluster vases painted in the same style with similar dragons and clouds reserved on an opaque duck's-egg blue ground between bands of waves, and with a similar band of ruyi heads below the mouth rim, illustrated by E. Gorer and J.F. Blacker, Les Porcelaines et les Pierres Dures Chinoises, London, 1911, pl. 188, where it is noted that they are from the Imperial Palace, Peking. A single vase similar to this latter pair was sold in our London rooms, 16 December 1996, lot 12.
Compare, also, the pear-shaped vase with Qianlong iron-red seal mark, where a single large iron-red dragon molded in high relief is applied around the sides amidst multicolored clouds similar to those on the present examples, illustrated by R. Soame Jenyns, Later Chinese Porcelain, London, 1951, pl. CVII (2), and later sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 28 April 1996, lot 55. As with the present pair there is a ruyi-head band at the gilded mouth rim and the decoration is reserved on a rich, opaque ground, this time of turquoise color. Another related but larger (45.7cm.) baluster vase painted in similar opaque enamels of bright tone with large, mature, scaly dragons amidst larger formations of multicolored vapor clouds reserved on a turquoise ground, and also with a Qianlong seal mark in iron red, was included in the exhibition, Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1990, illustrated by J. Spencer in the Catalogue, p. 372, no. 167. This vase also has a wavy band of multicolored lappets at the base, but the lappets are narrower and have a more striped appearance.