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Lot Essay
Yuzhi marks on glassware are very rare and only a few other examples appear to have been published, one being the winecup enamelled with a famille rose palette on an opalescent white ground, bearing a Kangxi yuzhi mark from the Barbara Hutton collection, illustrated by H. Moss, By Imperial Command, Hong Kong, 1976, p. 33, and sold in these Rooms, 22 March 1993, lot 586.
The unusual decorative motif on this zhadou is related to those on ceramics, particularly the 'linked' design of the pairs of dragons and phoenix, and jade carvings. Compare a famille rose basin decorated with a pair of similarly confronted descending dragons with their tails embraced by a circular loop, from the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Catalogue of a Special Exhibition of Dragon-motif Porcelain in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, 1983, no. 93. Also compare the comma-like design along the body of the dragon and phoenix with formalised archaistic design carved on a Qianlong Yuzhi marked jade snuff bottle, illustrated by H. Moss, V. Graham and K. Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, The J&J Collection, New York, 1993, vol. 1, no. 32.
Similar dragons appear on a Qianlong-marked red glass phoenix ewer in the collection of Walter and Phyllis Shorenstein, illustrated in C. Shangraw and D. Rabiner, A Chorus of Colors, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 1995, no. 81. For a transparent red glass bowl carved with this developed human-face form taotie-mask, see ibid., no. 82.
The unusual decorative motif on this zhadou is related to those on ceramics, particularly the 'linked' design of the pairs of dragons and phoenix, and jade carvings. Compare a famille rose basin decorated with a pair of similarly confronted descending dragons with their tails embraced by a circular loop, from the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Catalogue of a Special Exhibition of Dragon-motif Porcelain in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, 1983, no. 93. Also compare the comma-like design along the body of the dragon and phoenix with formalised archaistic design carved on a Qianlong Yuzhi marked jade snuff bottle, illustrated by H. Moss, V. Graham and K. Tsang, The Art of the Chinese Snuff Bottle, The J&J Collection, New York, 1993, vol. 1, no. 32.
Similar dragons appear on a Qianlong-marked red glass phoenix ewer in the collection of Walter and Phyllis Shorenstein, illustrated in C. Shangraw and D. Rabiner, A Chorus of Colors, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 1995, no. 81. For a transparent red glass bowl carved with this developed human-face form taotie-mask, see ibid., no. 82.