A pale celadon jade teapot and cover, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period | 清乾隆 青白玉吉慶有餘如意活環耳提梁蓋壺

Spink & Son, London.

An English family collection, acquired from the above between 1946 and 1965.

Spink & Son，倫敦

英國家族收藏，於1945至1965年購自上述來源

A Romance with Jade: From the De An Tang Collection, Yongshougong, Palace Museum, Beijing, 2004, cat. no. 101.

《玉緣：德安堂藏玉》，永壽宮，故宮博物院，北京，2004年，編號101

Imperial white jade teapots are exceptionally rare and highly coveted. This teapot is remarkable for the superb quality of its material and design. The translucency and smooth polish of the jade suggest that it was made in the latter part of the Qianlong reign, when high-quality white jade boulders became readily available after the Western campaigns, which subjugated the Dzungars and secured control over the jade-rich territories of Khotan and Yarkand.

Masterfully and scrupulously carved with utmost precision, the teapot is elegantly designed with a globular body, with the cover resting atop almost seamlessly, and a unique and graceful high-arched bracket handle. The spout, handle, and cover are meticulously carved as integral parts of the whole, demonstrating the skill required to work with such a precious and solid block of jade.

Jade teapots, such as the present lot, required significant amounts of raw jade material, and during the early Qianlong reign, jade was scarce due to the Dzungar control of the jade-producing regions. However, following the consolidation of Qing rule over these territories, a formal tribute system was established, with thousands of jin of raw jade being sent to the imperial workshops in Beijing. The harmonious balance between the handle, spout, and body is a testament to the precision and artistry of the imperial jade carvers. The technical demands of hollowing out a teapot with such a large body and narrow mouth, combined with the intricacies of carving the spout and high handle, make this piece truly exceptional.

The precision of the carving, texture of the polish, and other key features, including the petal-form finial on the current teapot, can be seen on three famous white jade ewers likely created in the same period, all melon-shaped in form with a ram-head spout. One is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, from the Qing court collection, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Jadeware (III), Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 216. Another, from the collection of Sir John Woolf, is illustrated in The Woolf Collection of Chinese Jades, Sotheby’s, London, 2013, cat. no. 59. A third, originally in the collection of Millicent Rogers (1902-1953), the American socialite and close friend of Madame Soong Mei-ling, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong on 28 April 1996, lot 2, and again in these rooms on 3 October 2017, lot 3613. Unlike the current teapot, these ewers are all characterised by russet enhancements to the surface, deliberately created in the Imperial Palace Workshops to cover deficiencies in the stone.