A very fine pair of blue and white vases, hu marks and period of Qianlong

each well potted, the ovoid body supported by a flared foot rising to a waisted neck, flanked at the shoulders by a pair of crisply-moulded zoomorphic mask handles suspending fixed rings, well painted in brilliant tones of underglaze-blue with simulated 'heaping and piling' effect to the body with a band of lotus blooms on scrolling leafy stems above a composite flower scroll band, all between three raised double fillets, above a band of rolling crested waves above a band of pendant lappets to the foot and below a band of upright plantain leaves encircling the foot, the mouth with a band of crested waves, the base with a six-character seal-mark in underglaze-blue

Sotheby's New York, 27th November 1990, lot 160.

Compare a Qianlong vase of this form and design in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum: Blue and White Ware of the Ch'ing Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1968, pl. 2; and one recently sold in these rooms, 30th October 2002, lot 282.

Vases of this type belong to a group of Qianlong blue and white wares discussed by Julian Thompson in 'Decorative Motifs on Blue and White in the S.C. Ko Collection', Chinese Porcelain. The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, pt. II, Hong Kong, 1987, p. 31, with decoration adapted from fifteenth century designs but used on a Chinese bronze shape 'alien to the fifteenth century'. This type of vase remained popular and continued being made throughout the Qing period; see a Daoguang vase included in Geng Baochan, Ming Qing ciqi jianding, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 510.