A FINE AND RARE MOLDED CELADON-GLAZED BOTTLE VASE

Details

A FINE AND RARE MOLDED CELADON-GLAZED BOTTLE VASE
INCISED QIANLONG SEAL MARK AND OF THE PERIOD

Superbly molded in high relief with two writhing five-clawed dragons, one on the globular body confronting the other placed at the shoulder with its long tail continuing up the tapering cylindrical neck, all amidst a dense pattern of vaporous ruyi-form clouds, some superimposed by bats with outstretched wings, covered inside and out with an attractive glaze of bluish-green tone pooling in the recesses, the glaze on the base firing to a pale tone on the inscribed nianhao
10 7/8in. (27.6cm.) high

Provenance

Arthur Rothwell Collection, no. 39
Stephen Junkunc, III

Lot Essay

Compare the celadon-glazed molded bottle vase with Qianlong seal mark in the Oehlmer Collection, Roemer Museum, Hildesheim, illustrated by Ulrich Wiesner, Chinesiches Porzellan, 1981, no. 89. This vase is approximately the same size (30cm. high) and is molded with a dragon and a phoenix amidst clouds that are very similar in style of execution and spacing as those on the present vase. The vase, however, has a more bulbous lower body and a broader neck than the vase being offered

Compare, also, the larger celadon-glazed jar molded with two dragons amidst clouds and with a molded Qianlong seal mark, from the collection of Alfred Morrison (1821-1897), sold in our London rooms, October 18, 1971, lot 51. Many of the pieces in his collection were purchased from Lord Loch of Drylaw (1827-1900), who had brought them back from China after the sacking of the Summer Palace in 1860