A fine large blue and white vase, hu seal mark and period of Qianlong

of archaistic hu form, painted in varying tones of cobalt-blue with simulated 'heaping and piling', to the main body with a composite floral meander on a continuous scrolling leafy stem below a band of ruyi-heads and above a band of crashing waves at the base, the steeply angled shoulders decorated with a band of scrolling lotus blooms above crashing waves, below a pendant trifoliate band, the waisted neck with scrolling chrysanthemum blooms and flanked by a pair of tubular handles painted with crashing waves, the flared mouth with a further band of crested waves above a band of 'C'-scrolls suspending stylised lotus hearts, the foot with a band of pendent lappets, the base inscribed with the six-character seal-mark in underglaze-blue    

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 27th April 1993, lot 174.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 27th April 2003, lot 221.

A Qianlong vase of this form and design, with stippling to imitate the early Ming 'heaped and piled' effect, sold in these rooms, 16th May 1977, lot 90, and now in the Hong Kong Museum of Art, was included in the Museum's exhibition The Wonders of the Potter's Palette, Hong Kong, 1984, cat.no. 63. Compare also a vase from the collection of Sir Ralph Harwood, K.C.B., K.C.V.O., at one time Financial Secretary to King George V and Controller of the Royal Household, and believed to have presented to him by Queen Mary, out of the Royal collections at Windsor Castle, was sold in our London rooms, 7th June 1994, lot 358.

A similar vase was sold in our New York rooms, 19th September 2001, lot 175; and another at Christie's Hong Kong, 7th July 2003, lot 687.