BLACK ENAMEL QIANLONG WUCHENG CYCLICAL DATE CORRESPONDING TO 1748 AND OF THE PERIOD

This wall vase belongs to a group of finely made porcelain vases produced at the imperial kilns for the Qianlong emperor, who provided the poems with which form the major decoration. Some of these vases were for use in the palace and some were intended for use in the imperial sedan chairs. An example of the latter is the vase in the Percival David Foundation, the poem on which makes clear that it was for use in an imperial sedan chair (see R. Scott, For the Imperial Court - Qing Porcelain from the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, American Federation of Arts, New York, 1988, pp 18-9, 52-3, no. 3). The inscription on the David Foundation vase makes reference to a date equivalent to AD 1742, while another vase of this type in the Tianminlou Collection has an inscription with the date equivalent to AD 1765 (see The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection - Chinese Ceramics Part II, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1987, no. 116). Two more pairs of inscribed wall vases are in the collection of the Nanjing Museum, one pair with a similar ruby sgraffiato ground as on the current example. Porcelain wall vases of this type can also be seen today in rooms within the Beijing Imperial Palace, including Qianlong's former studio the Sanxitang, Hall of Three Rarities.