A RARE ENAMELED OPAQUE WHITE GLASS BOTTLE VASE

GLASS

Details

A RARE ENAMELED OPAQUE WHITE GLASS BOTTLE VASE
QIANLONG FOUR-CHARACTER SEAL MARK IN IRON RED WITHIN A SQUARE AND OF THE PERIOD

The compressed lower body finely painted with a blossoming prunus tree, its gnarled branches spreading across the shoulders above graceful pink and yellow poppies, with pink begonias growing at the base of the trunk, all issuing from a cluster of blue ornamental rocks, with two butterflies in flight on the reverse, all below a beaded and tassel-hung garland pendent from a pale blue ruyi collar encircling the tall, cylindrical neck below a border of yellow key scroll, all reserved on the opaque white body
5 1/8in. (13cm.) high

Provenance

Nagatani, 1948
Stephen Junkunc, III

Lot Essay

Refer to the related white glass bottle vase painted with flowering branches in the Percival David Foundation illustrated in the atalogue, Section 2, London, 1973, pl. XII, no. A834, also exhibited at The International Exhibition of Chinese Art, Royal Academy of Art, London, 1935-36, Catalogue, no. 2209. Another glass bottle vase painted with prunus and roses, of Qianlong date, is illustrated by Bo Gyllensvärd, "A Botanical Excursion in the Kempe Collection", B.M.F.E.A., no. 37, 1965, pl. 15

A carved enameled glass vase with a similar tassel-hung garland pendant was included in the London O.C.S. exhibition, Arts of the Ch'ing Dynasty, 1964, Catalogue, no. 253. A bottle vase from the collection of G. de Menasce included in the same exhibition, no. 252, is also painted with naturalistic flowers and has a Qianlong four-character seal mark in iron red, as does the present example