A FINE COPPER-RED AND UNDERGLAZE-BLUE 'THREE-STRING' AMPHORA MARK AND PERIOD OF YONGZHENG

delicately potted with an elongated ovoid body tapering to the countersunk foot, the sloping shoulder sweeping up to a slender flaring neck with triple filets 'three string' (san xian) collaring the base of the neck, the body decorated with a band of blue bagua trigrams around the shoulder, above four yin-yang symbols painted in two shades of contrasting cobalt blue, all above deftly painted and well-controlled bright copper-red crashing waves with each concentric circle distinctly picked-out, the red imbued with pale splashes of celadon green specks, the base with a six-character reign mark written in underglaze blue

Acquired in Europe in the 1960s.

R.P. Marchant, 'Some Interesting Pieces of Marked Ch'ing Porcelain', Bulletin of the Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong, no. 3, 1977-78, pls 57-59.

Apart from a minute 1mm frit to the rim of the foot, and a few minor surface scratches to the glaze, the overall condition is very good.
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This 'three string' (san xian) or 'radish' (laifu) shape was an innovation of the Kangxi reign, when it was produced with monochrome glazes and underglaze-painted decoration. It is one of the rare Kangxi shapes that continued into the Yongzheng reign, but probably into the early years only. If examples of the Kangxi period are already rare, those of the Yongzheng reign are extremely scarce.

On the present Yongzheng version the proportions of the Kangxi shape were slightly modified, with a more rounded body making for a softer, less austere silhouette. Its decoration is highly unusual in its distinctly Daoist message, and its layout, with its stern simplicity and large blank spaces, is equally uncommon. The Yongzheng Emperor's interest in Daoist ideas and practices is well known, even though fundamentally he believed in Buddhism. It is also apparent in other works of art he commissioned, but was rarely displayed quite so openly.

In its minimalist concept, this vase may be compared with some mallet-shaped vases, which are painted with roundels and a chevron border in underglaze red and thin underglaze-blue lines, similarly on a largely blank white surface; see Porcelains from the Tianjin Municipal Museum, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 130; and Suzanne G. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989, pl. 212.

A pair of vases of this pattern, with the yin-yang symbols painted in mirror image, from the collection of George R. Davies is illustrated in Gulland 1911, vol. II, nos 654 and 655, probably the vases sold in these rooms 28th November 1979, lot 224 and 26th November 1980, lot 316, respectively, and the former again in our New York rooms 24th March 1998, lot 677. A companion piece to the present bottle is in the Meiyintang collection, to be published in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 4, London, forthcoming (2009), cat. no. 1707.

In the Yongzheng period, this vase form was also produced with another motif, depicting an underglaze copper-red dragon among clouds and waves, an example of which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, published in Valenstein, op.cit., col. pl. 36; another in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, given by Sir Harry and Lady Garner, in John Ayers, 'The "Peachbloom" Wares of the Kangxi Period (1662-1722)', Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 64, 1999-2000, fig. 17 (our fig. 1).

Already in the 1680s a mottled copper-red 'peach-bloom' version of this 'three-string' vase had been devised under the kiln supervisor Zang Yingxuan (dates unknown); pale green celadon-glazed examples with a carved dragon design existed; as well as a version painted with small dragons in underglaze copper red (see Valenstein, op.cit., col. pl. 37 and pls. 211 and 231; and Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang Qingdai yuyao ciqi [Porcelains from the Qing dynasty imperial kilns in the Palace Museum collection], vol. I, part I, Beijing, 2005, pls 105, 112 and 113). Another peach-bloom vase of this form, from the collection of Mrs. Yale Kneeland, sold in our New York rooms 1st June 1994, lot 372, and later the Jingguantang collection, is now in the Baur Collection, Geneva, illustrated in John Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, Geneva, 1999, vol. 2, pl. 174 (our fig. 2).