A FINE AND VERY RARE ROBIN'S-EGG-GLAZED MOONFLASK, BIANHU
A FINE AND VERY RARE ROBIN'S-EGG-GLAZED MOONFLASK, BIANHU

细节
A FINE AND VERY RARE ROBIN'S-EGG-GLAZED MOONFLASK, BIANHU
QIANLONG IMPRESSED SIX-CHARACTER SEAL MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)

Well potted with a flattened ovoid body rising to a slender cylindrical neck set with a pair of ruyi-shaped loop handles, the upper and lower body with slightly raised bands, covered overall with an evenly streaked glaze feathered in pale blue, lapis-blue and lavender
13 in. (33.1 cm.) high, stand, box

拍品专文

Previously sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 29 October 1991, lot 85, and again, in these Rooms, The Imperial Sale, 26 April 1999, lot 543.

It is very rare to find moonflasks of this form with a robin's-egg glaze. Compare with the only other recorded example of slightly shorter and broader proportions, also with an incised Qianlong seal mark, sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 21 May 1979, lot 105, and included in the Christie's London Special Exhibition of Important Chinese Ceramics from the Robert Chang Collection, 1993, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 48.

The extraordinary effect of this glaze is achieved with the use of copper and arsenic as an opacifier to create an opaque stippled turquoise glaze. R. Kerr in Chinese Ceramics, Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty, London, 1986, notes that while visual examination reveals there to be two distinctive types of robin's-egg glaze, one streaked with copper-red and the other stippled with blotches of turquoise and dark blue, further analysis is needed to clarify the chemistry of these glazes, p. 88.