QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795)

According to Qing court records, in the 45th year of the Qianlong reign (1780), a large number of cloisonné enamel bowls and dishes decorated with wanshou wujiang characters were produced for the celebration of the Emperor's 70th birthday.

A pair of similar bowls, of comparable size, is illustrated by Claudia Brown in Chinese Cloisonné: The Clague Collection, Phoenix Art Museum, 1980, pp. 122-23, pl. 56, and others have been sold at auction, including a pair at Christie's New York, 20 March 2001, lot 53, and a single bowl at Sotheby's London, 4 November 2009, lot 144. Brown notes that bowls of this type in varying sizes include one in the Clague Collection, one in the Staatliche Museum, Berlin, and six in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Bowls of the same design, but of smaller size (33/4 and 4 in.) and with deeper sides, have been sold at Christie's Hong Kong: a pair, 28 November 2006, lot 1678, and a single bowl with Qianlong mark, 29 May 2013, lot 2073. See, also, the two bowls of this design and bearing the same zisun yongbao marks, in the Beijing Palace Museum Collection, illustrated in Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum - Enamels (2) - Cloisonne in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Beijing, 2011, pls. 281 and 282.