QIANLONG INCISED FOUR-CHARACTER MARKS WITHIN DOUBLE-SQUARES AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)

Miniature vessels such as the present lot were particularly appreciated by the literati class. They were valued for their high artistic content, revealing at once technical perfection and aesthetic refinement combined with multiple layers of symbolism, thus stimulating the senses and the mind at the same time. They were displayed in collectors' cabinets which were placed in the scholar's studio, as depicted in numerous genre paintings from the Ming to Qing periods. With the evolving trend towards displaying aesthetic rather than functional objects in the cabinets, this taste for the miniature reached its apogee under the Qianlong reign.

Compare to a similarly decorated miniature gu vase, also with a four-character Qianlong mark within double-squares, in the Beijing Palace Museum Collection, and illustrated in Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum - Enamels (2) - Cloisonne in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Beijing, 2011, no. 134 (fig. 1); another one bearing also a square four-character Qianlong mark, although slightly taller, illustrated by Claudia Brown, Chinese Cloisonné - The Clague Collection, Phoenix, 1980, pp.118-119, pl.52.