This magnificent vase is an extremely rare example of butterflies and flower sprays on a famille rose vase of this form, and is a masterpiece of design. The body is very finely potted and the colours and painting of the enamel decoration are exquisite, and the way in which the designs have been used to complement the shape of the vessel is also remarkable.

An identical vase was sold in these Rooms, Important Qing Porcelain from the Yuen Family Collection, 30 April 2000, lot 589. It was also included in the Min Chiu Society Thirtieth Anniversary Exhibition, Selected Treasures of Chinese Art, 1990, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 166, and in Sotheby's Hong Kong, Twenty Years, 1993, pl. 280. Another nearly identical double-gourd vase was also sold in these Rooms, 18 March 1991, lot 607; and is now in the Meiyintang Collection, illustrated by R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, no. 962, together with a circular box (no. 961) decorated around the base with similar lotus petals.

Compare the shape of the present lot with a blue and white Qianlong double-gourd vase of the same form but painted with lotus scrolls, included in the exhibition Ming and Ch'ing Porcelain from the T. Y. Chao Family Foundation, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1978, and illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 88.