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Lot Essay
This delicate and rare enamelled vase is a Jiaqing example of fine painting on metal with a deep ruby red ground. Deep ruby red can be seen used as a dramatic ground colour on two larger Qianlong porcelain vases in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing (illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 39 - Porcelains with Cloisonne Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, Commercial Press, Hong Kong, 1999, pp. 144-5, nos. 126 and 127). Interestingly, both these porcelain vases share with the current metal example the use of cobalt blue, pale blue, and pale green in their decorative details. In particular, the ruyi head bands have cobalt blue and white outlines, and pale blue-green interior colour. A Qianlong porcelain vase, of similar shape to the current metal-bodied vase, with sgraffiato ruby red ground and elaborate floral scrolls was sold in our New York Rooms 2nd December 1993, lot 345 (Fig. 1). Also like the current vase, this New York vase had a plantain band around the base of the neck and a band of ruyi heads around the shoulder.
Like the current vase, the Qianlong porcelain vases are decorated with elaborate floral scrolls, but using a slightly different enamel palette. The blue and green palette seen on the current vase, is closer to that used for the floral scrolls, also shown against a deep ruby red ground on two Qianlong wall vases in the Palace Museum, Beijing (illustrated ibid, p. 160, no. 142). The deep ruby red ground can also be seen on a pear-shaped Jiaqing vase in the Palace Museum (illustrated ibid, p. 194, no. 171) used around the neck, shoulders and base. Those areas are decorated with elaborate floral scrolls and ruyi heads.
The red enamel four-character Jiaqing mark on the base of the current vase is of similar style to the blue enamel mark on the base of a Jiaqing metal-bodied ewer in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing (illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 43 - Metal-bodied Enamel Ware, Commercial Press, Hong Kong, 2002, p. 257, no. 242).
Like the current vase, the Qianlong porcelain vases are decorated with elaborate floral scrolls, but using a slightly different enamel palette. The blue and green palette seen on the current vase, is closer to that used for the floral scrolls, also shown against a deep ruby red ground on two Qianlong wall vases in the Palace Museum, Beijing (illustrated ibid, p. 160, no. 142). The deep ruby red ground can also be seen on a pear-shaped Jiaqing vase in the Palace Museum (illustrated ibid, p. 194, no. 171) used around the neck, shoulders and base. Those areas are decorated with elaborate floral scrolls and ruyi heads.
The red enamel four-character Jiaqing mark on the base of the current vase is of similar style to the blue enamel mark on the base of a Jiaqing metal-bodied ewer in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing (illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 43 - Metal-bodied Enamel Ware, Commercial Press, Hong Kong, 2002, p. 257, no. 242).