A very rare and massive blue and white vase, hu seal mark and period of Qianlong

the broad pear-shaped body of ovoid section, painted in brilliant tones of cobalt-blue in the Ming-style with simulated 'heaping and piling', the body decorated with a composite floral scroll issuing lotus, peony, chrysanthemum and other blooms, all below ruyi-heads and above a band of upright lappets, the neck with a leafy chrysanthemum scroll between raised borders of scrolling florets and flanked by a pair of dragon-head handles, all below pendant ruyi-heads and a band of crashing waves, the splayed foot encircled by a band of meandering lingzhi fungus above a classic scroll band, the base inscribed with the six-character seal-mark in underglaze-blue

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 28th April 1998, lot 789.  (Illustrated on cover)  

It is very rare to find a vase of this shape, painted in this intricate early Ming style, and only three closely related examples appear to be recorded, one of the same form and design, in the Shanghai Museum, included in the exhibition Den Blå Draken, Röhsska Museet, Göteborg, 1995, cat.no.60; the other two of the same form but one painted with similar flower scrolls between different borders, in the Tianjin Municipal Museum, illustrated in Tianjin Shi Yishu Bowuguan Cang Ci, Tianjin, 1993, pl. 165, and the other painted with fruiting and flowering sprays published in The Complete Collection of Treasures in the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red (III), Shanghai, 2000, pl. 138.  

This shape, which is loosely based on an archaic bronze prototype, is also known in a smaller version, with raised bands following the bronze model, and with monochrome glazes; compare, for example, a ‘teadust’ glazed vase of Yongzheng mark and period in Beijing, illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong. Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, 1989, p.298, pl. 127; and a Guan-type vase of Qianlong mark and period illustrated in Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, 1994, vol. II, no. 873. See also a smaller vase, with a Qianlong reign mark and of the period, from the W.W. Winkworth collection sold in these rooms, 12th December 1972, lot 83.