25 – M4743
Description
Chinese imperial porcelain blue and white vase of zun form, painted in the Ming style with heaped and piled effect, the body with two wide bands, the lower register with six different large flowerheads and twelve smaller flowerheads, all on continuous scrolling branches with their characteristic leaves, including peony, lily, rose, poppy, pink, camellia and mallow, beneath a band with six large lotus flowerheads on a continuous scrolling leafy branch with smaller flowerheads, all between six relief ribs above a wide band of swirling crested waves and a further rib above lappets on the splayed foot, all between two high relief taotie animal mask and ring handles, the neck with formal archaic style leaves, beneath a further crested wave band at the rim.
The base with a six-character sealmark of Qianlong in underglaze blue and of the period, 1736-1795.
9 ⅞ inches, 25.2 cm high.
Provenance & Additional Information
- From the collection of Evelyn Williams Meadows Norie (1862-1915), colonel and adjutant to King George V of Britain.
- A similar vase in the National Palace Museum, Taipei is illustrated in Blue and White Ware of the Ch’ing Dynasty, Book II, Hong Kong, 1968, 2; another was included by Marchant in their exhibition of Imperial Porcelain of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong, 1996, no. 48, p. 71; another in the Nanjing Museum is illustrated by Xu Huping in The Official Kiln Porcelain of the Chinese Qing Dynasty, Shanghai, 2003, p. 235; another was included by Marchant in their exhibition of The Rolf Heiniger Collection of Qing Imperial Wares, 2000, no. 8, pp. 22/3.
- Vases of zun form are based on a Shang bronze The taotie mask handles, with an integral ring, are a homophone for the word “glutton”; therefore, when the vase features these handles it acts as a warning against avarice and gluttony. Painted with an abundance of flowers, the design also forms the rebus huakaifugui, “may the blooming flowers bring you prosperity”.
Condition
Overall in excellent condition, without any chips,crcaks,or restoration.
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