Details
A RARE DOUCAI QUATREFOIL VASE
QIANLONG SEAL MARK AND OF THE PERIOD

The vase is moulded in lobed form with flattened sides, elaborately painted with composite scrolling lotus designs in bright enamels utilising underglaze-blue outlines and highlighted with gilding, the foot is encirled by a band of upright lappets and the waisted neck flanked by two trefoil-section handles below a band of ruyi around the neck, the base and interior glazed turquoise (small area of rim restored)
14 5/8 in. (37.2 cm.) high, stand, box
Sale room notice
Please note: this lot is the pair to the vase sold previously in Hong Kong, 28 october 1992, lot 170.

Lot Essay

Previously sold in Hong Kong, 28 October 1992, lot 170.

It is unusual to find vases of this form and no other doucai decorated example appears to have been published. Compare the elegant shape of the present lot with a similar gilded lobed vase with stylised dragon handles from the Palace Museum collection, illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, p. 394, no. 76. Also, another Qianlong-marked blue and white vase painted with bats and clouds above rocks and waves illustrated in Qingdai Taoci Daquan, Chinese Ceramics of the Qing Dynasty, p. 231.

The peculiarity of this form is probably a derivative of the elongated elliptical vases with lug-handles; for an example with green enamel on a yellow-ground, cf. Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, p. 442, no. 124.

Compare the similar decorative elements to a pair of cloisonne enamel lobed baluster vases of the same period illustrated by Brinker and Lutz, Chinese Cloisonne: The Pierre Uldry Collection, no. 282. It is probable that artistic inspiration for this elaborate and complex design on porcelain is inspired by cloisonne enamels.

(US$45,000-55,000)

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