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Lot Essay
The sealmark on the base of the present teapot is faint, although it is possible to decipher four characters written in seal script with the last readable character, qing, 'bright'.
A slightly smaller teapot of the same shape and glaze is illustrated in The Art of the Yixing Potter, The K.S. Lo Collection, Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware, Hong Kong, 1990, p. 149, no. 33, where the incised sealmark reads: Danran zhai yin, the 'Studio of Calm and Tranquality'.
Teapots of this square shape was thought to have been an innovation of the Kangxi period potter, Hua Fengxiang, whose inspiration of this form was from archaic bronze square-shaped vessels known as fanghu, cf. K.S. Lo, The Stonewares of Yixing, From the Ming Period to the Present Day, Hong Kong, 1986. Although the shape existed in the Kangxi period, it was not until the Yongzheng period that Robin's-egg-glaze was used on Yixing wares such as the Flagstaff House teapot, ibid., p. 208; where the teapot is illustrated, col. pl. XXIX.
A slightly smaller teapot of the same shape and glaze is illustrated in The Art of the Yixing Potter, The K.S. Lo Collection, Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware, Hong Kong, 1990, p. 149, no. 33, where the incised sealmark reads: Danran zhai yin, the 'Studio of Calm and Tranquality'.
Teapots of this square shape was thought to have been an innovation of the Kangxi period potter, Hua Fengxiang, whose inspiration of this form was from archaic bronze square-shaped vessels known as fanghu, cf. K.S. Lo, The Stonewares of Yixing, From the Ming Period to the Present Day, Hong Kong, 1986. Although the shape existed in the Kangxi period, it was not until the Yongzheng period that Robin's-egg-glaze was used on Yixing wares such as the Flagstaff House teapot, ibid., p. 208; where the teapot is illustrated, col. pl. XXIX.