YONGZHENG/EARLY QIANLONG PERIOD, CIRCA 1735

For two similar examples, see D.S. Howard, The Choice of the Private Trader: The Private Market in Chinese Export Porcelain illustrated from the Hodroff Collection, London, 1994, p. 155, no. 169, also illustrated on the book's cover, and the cylindrical coffee-pot with a dragon's head and tail as spout and handle sold by Christie's, London, 28 April 1999, lot 141. Howard, writing of the remarkably similar Hodroff coffee-pot, observes, "it was clearly specially commissioned and although apparently for western use, it could have been regarded by a Chinese buyer as an interesting western novelty." Notably, each comparable example lacks the hinge-loops found atop the handle and at the edge of the cover to the present lot.