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Lot Essay
This diminutive vase and cover, with its archaistic decoration and enamels colored to suggest the patina of ancient bronze, represents a major artistic theme of the Qianlong reign. Like his predecessors, the Qianlong emperor was a great admirer and collector of antiques and was particularly fascinated with the concept of imitating one material in another. During the Qianlong reign this fascination was at its height, and lacquer, stone, wood and bronze were among the materials reproduced in porcelain. With the technical advances and virtuosity of porcelain production during the Qianlong period, potters from the official kilns were able to experiment with different ways and techniques to satisfy the emperor's penchant for the curious and archaic.
There is a small group of Imperial Qianlong-marked porcelains to which this vase belongs, all decorated with mottled enamels of different types such as turquoise on the present piece, combined with café-au-lait-tone enamels and gilt motifs, and fashioned in imitation of ancient bronzes. Usually, the decoration on the porcelain vessels was modified from its original form and it is often difficult to determine whether they were copied from ancient prototypes or from contemporary archaistic Qianlong bronzes. Here, the central confronting birds with rounded heads form decorative roundels, rather than the more squared designs found on ancient bronzes. Similarly, while elegantly potted, the shape is an interpretation of an ancient bronze form, with the addition of a conforming low-domed cover and bud-form finial.
One feature that appears on ancient bronze vessels and that distinguishes a few of the porcelains of this group, such as the current vessel, is the molded leiwen ground on which the raised motifs appear. As opposed to simply mottled enamels on a flat surface, the molded grounds provide a textural contrast to the flat gilt and enameled motifs. A small archaistic porcelain bell in the Palace Museum, Beijing, that also displays this rare feature beneath mottled turquoise, green and black enamels, is illustrated in Kangxi. Yongzheng. Qianlong: Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 415, no. 96.
Other forms from this Imperial group decorated in a similar palette to the present piece include: a tripod censer illustrated in Emperor Ch'ien-lung's Grand Cultural Enterprise, Taipei, 2002, p. 173, no. V-7, and an archaistic bottle vase from the Collection of Gerard Hawthorne sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 5 October 2011, lot 1949. Another archaistic porcelain vase displaying a 'robin's-egg' ground, with squared flat handles similar to those on the present vase, was sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 9 October 2102, lot 3004. Others can be found with 'teadust'-glazed grounds including one illustrated in Kangxi. Yongzheng. Qianlong: Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, ibid., p. 412, no. 93, and a rare beaker vase, gu, sold at Christie's New York, 15-16 September 2011, lot 1602.
There is a small group of Imperial Qianlong-marked porcelains to which this vase belongs, all decorated with mottled enamels of different types such as turquoise on the present piece, combined with café-au-lait-tone enamels and gilt motifs, and fashioned in imitation of ancient bronzes. Usually, the decoration on the porcelain vessels was modified from its original form and it is often difficult to determine whether they were copied from ancient prototypes or from contemporary archaistic Qianlong bronzes. Here, the central confronting birds with rounded heads form decorative roundels, rather than the more squared designs found on ancient bronzes. Similarly, while elegantly potted, the shape is an interpretation of an ancient bronze form, with the addition of a conforming low-domed cover and bud-form finial.
One feature that appears on ancient bronze vessels and that distinguishes a few of the porcelains of this group, such as the current vessel, is the molded leiwen ground on which the raised motifs appear. As opposed to simply mottled enamels on a flat surface, the molded grounds provide a textural contrast to the flat gilt and enameled motifs. A small archaistic porcelain bell in the Palace Museum, Beijing, that also displays this rare feature beneath mottled turquoise, green and black enamels, is illustrated in Kangxi. Yongzheng. Qianlong: Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 415, no. 96.
Other forms from this Imperial group decorated in a similar palette to the present piece include: a tripod censer illustrated in Emperor Ch'ien-lung's Grand Cultural Enterprise, Taipei, 2002, p. 173, no. V-7, and an archaistic bottle vase from the Collection of Gerard Hawthorne sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 5 October 2011, lot 1949. Another archaistic porcelain vase displaying a 'robin's-egg' ground, with squared flat handles similar to those on the present vase, was sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 9 October 2102, lot 3004. Others can be found with 'teadust'-glazed grounds including one illustrated in Kangxi. Yongzheng. Qianlong: Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, ibid., p. 412, no. 93, and a rare beaker vase, gu, sold at Christie's New York, 15-16 September 2011, lot 1602.