A FINE AND VERY RARE COPPER-RED DECORATED MEIPING SEAL MARK AND PERIOD OF QIANLONG

of very well potted baluster form with low rounded shoulders rising to a short waisted neck, delicately pencilled in varying tones of copper-red enhanced by simulated 'heaping and piling', decorated around the sides with a composite floral scroll including lotus, chrysanthemum and other blooms on meandering leafy stems, above a band of upright leaves encircling the base, the shoulders with pendant leaf lappets beneath a band of detached floral sprays, the neck with florets, inscribed to the base with the six-character seal-mark in underglaze-blue

Sotheby's London, 20th June 2001, lot 27.

Fine pencil-outline decoration in copper-red creating a linear and airy effect on vessels, belong to a small limited group of Qing Dynasty ceramics.  An identical meiping was sold in Hong Kong, 1st November 2004, lot 879. 

See also four Qianlong marked copper-red vessels including two of lantern form, one in the Wang Xing Lou Collection, illustrated in Imperial Perfection: The Palace Porcelain of the Three Emperors, Hong Kong, 2004, no. 26, and another formerly in the Jinguantang Collection, illustrated in The Tsui Museum of Art, Chinese Ceramics IV, Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 82.  A third moonflask from the C.P. Lin Collection, included in the exhibition, Elegant Form and Harmonious Decoration, Percival David Foundation, 1992, Catalogue, p. 149, no. 171.  A baluster vase included in the exhibition, K'ang-hsi, Yung-cheng and Ch'ien-lung Porcelain Ware from the Ch'ing Dynasty in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, 1986, Catalogue no. 73.