QIANLONG MOLDED AND GILDED SEAL MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)

The decoration of a 'hundred shou' characters on the present vase suggests that it was likely made for a birthday celebration. The decoration is in imitation of champlevé enamel, a cross-media practice which J. Ayers, in The Baur Collection, Geneva, 1969, vol. IV, p. 12, describes as a 'striking phenomenon' during the Qianlong period. A nearly identical vase in the Yunnan Provincial Museum, gifted by the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in "A Selection of Porcelain from the Yunnan Provincial Museum Collection," Art & Collection, 2003:2, no. 125, p. 63. (Fig. 1)