An extremely rare spinach-green jade 'peach' vase, meiping, Mark and period of Jiaqing | 清嘉慶 碧玉九桃梅瓶 《嘉慶年製》款

Sotheby's London, 7th June 2000, lot 69.

倫敦蘇富比2000年6月7日，編號69

A Romance with Jade: From the De An Tang Collection, Yongshougong, Palace Museum, Beijing, 2004, cat. no. 30.

《玉緣：德安堂藏玉》，永壽宮，故宮博物院，北京，2004年，編號30

This vessel is distinguished by its meiping shape – a form much more commonly found in ceramics but rarely in jades. Not only is the shape wasteful of precious material, but since the hollowing-out through the mouth of the wide shoulder requires great technical know-how, jade vases of this type represent in themselves tours-de-force. It is also for this reason that the mouth on the present piece is proportionally wider than on the typical meiping form encountered in ceramics. The design of this vase, with a continuous scroll at the centre between ruyi-shaped lappets on the shoulder and flower petals at the base, took inspiration from the blue-and-white meiping created in the Yuan dynasty. See, for example, a larger Yuan prototype in the Chang Foundation, Taipei, illustrated in James Spencer, Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Taipei, 1990, pl. 72. While the ceramic counterparts were used as wine vessels during the Yuan period, the jade meiping made in the Qing dynasty were intended for decorative purposes, or served as flower receptacles.

One closely related vase, also with three bands of decoration as the present piece, appears to have been published, a vessel with a wider mouth, slightly taller and more slender than the present piece, from the Qing Court collection and still preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing (accession no. Gu-101310), illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Jadeware, vol. 3, Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 64.

Compare also two related spinach green jade meiping with an overall design of lotus flowers and curling leaves and stems; one preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing (accession no. Gu-103336), illustrated in Jiu-fang Li, Chinese Jades throughout the Ages – Connoisseurship of Chinese Jades, vol. 12: Qing Dynasty, Chicago and San Francisco, 1997, pl. 33; the other, again a prototype from the Qianlong period and with an addition of bajixiang among flower scrolls, formerly in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, later in the collection of the Alan and Simone Hartman, illustrated in Robert Kleiner, Chinese Jades from the Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 138.

此器呈梅瓶樣式，梅瓶常以瓷胎燒造，然以碧玉琢製，則稀見無多。取整料作梅瓶，既耗珍材，又賴絕技，因寬肩窄口，梅瓶掏膛非神工造化不可為。相較瓷製梅瓶，此器瓶口略寬，亦為應變之舉。瓶身紋飾汲取自元代青花梅瓶，肩上飾如意紋及蕉葉紋，足上飾花瓣紋、內刻蓮花，瓶腹一周飾桃紋，果實碩大，枝葉茂盛。台北鴻禧美術館藏一元代梅瓶例，見史彬士，《中國歷代陶瓷選集》，台北，1990年，圖版72。元代時，梅瓶瓷器用於盛酒，此件清代梅瓶玉器則用作裝飾，或為花器。北京故宮博物院清宮舊藏有一例與此件相仿，瓶身亦帶三道紋飾，其口略寬，稍細長，藏品編號：故101310，錄於《故宮博物院藏文物珍品全集：玉器（下）》，香港，1995年，圖版64。

另比兩例碧玉梅瓶，飾蓮花、卷草等紋。其一，北京故宮博物院藏，藏品編號：故103336，收入李久芳，《華夏古玉：鑑賞篇（12）集大成的清代玉器》，芝加哥及舊金山，1997年，圖版33；其二，仍為乾隆例，有八吉祥置於纏枝花卉間，原麻薩諸塞州劍橋哈佛大學福格藝術博物館藏，後入哈特曼伉儷雅蓄，錄於 Robert Kleiner，《Chinese Jades from the Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman》，香港，1996年，圖版138。