A FINE AND RARE SMALL GUAN-TYPE QUADRUPLE VASE

Details

A FINE AND RARE SMALL GUAN-TYPE QUADRUPLE VASE
YONGZHENG FOUR-CHARACTER SEAL MARK AND OF THE PERIOD

The vase is potted as four conjoined, slender cylindrical vases, each of identical size and shape with a waisted neck and rounded mouth rim, the arrangement forming a central deep square aperture, all covered in an attractive luminescent pale blue glaze with a wide network of yellowish-brown crackles pooling at the adjacent sides, the base of each vase with one character of the nianhao, the glaze stopping at the dark-brown-dressed foot
4 in. (10.2 cm.) high, box

Provenance

James W. and Marilyn Alsdorf, sold in these Rooms, 23 March 1993, lot 735.

Exhibited

Chicago, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chinese Art from the Collection of James W. and Marilyn Alsdorf, September 21-November 13, 1970, no. c59l.
Christie's London, An Exhibition of Important Chinese Ceramics from the Robert Chang Collection, 2-14 June 1993, Catalogue, no. 59.

Lot Essay

A very similar Yongzheng-marked vase of slightly larger size with a Ru-type glaze in the National Palace Museum, Taibei, was included in the exhibition, Qing Monochrome Porcelain, Catalogue, 1981, no. 77. Compare a celadon-glazed example of similar size with a Yongzheng mark from the J.M. Hu Collection, sold at Sotheby's New York, 4 June 1985, lot 40. There seems to have been a predilection for these multi-spouted vases in the Yongzheng period. Another type combining five vases with a Ru-type glaze, was included in the Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Ceramics from the Collection of the Kau Chi Society, Hong Kong, 1981, Catalogue, no. 132. The Museum of Fine Art, Boston, has in its collection a six-necked vase of this type under a teadust glaze, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, vol. 10, no. 265; it is unmarked, but is dated to the Yongzheng or Qianlong period.

(US$38,000-50,000)

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