A rare famille-rose tibetan-style ewer seal mark and period of Qianlong

the globular lower body supported on a wide splayed foot, rising to a bulbous knopped neck surmounted by a disc-shaped mouth of angled profile, the shoulder potted with a curved spout issuing from a moulded makara head detailed in shaded tones of iron-red, the body exquisitely decorated in vibrant colours of the famille-rose palette with the bajixiang, interspersed by leafy lotus scrolls beneath a band of interlocking ruyi heads and above a band of lappets, the foot, stem, spout and mouth similary decorated with bands of composite scrolling flowers enhanced by gilt beaded borders, the base turquoise, with a central square reserved in white for the six-character seal mark in iron-red

Qianlong ewers of this Tibetan shape entirely painted with flower scrolls are rare. They are better known painted with the motif of bajixiang amongst lotus scrolls in famille-rose enamels on colour-ground. Compare the green-ground ewer in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, illustrated in Rose Kerr, Chinese Ceramics. Porcelain of the Qing Dynasty, London, 1986, pl. 101; the gold-ground ewer included in the exhibition The Wonders of the Potter's Palette, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1984, cat.no. 68; and the ewer decorated in gilt relief on a green ground included in the Special Exhibition of K'ang-hsi, Yung-cheng and Ch'ien-lung Porcelain, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1986, cat.no. 110.

Two ewers of this design were sold in these rooms, 26th October 1993, lot 254; and another, 1st November 1994, lot 194. For later examples see a Jiaqing ewer of this form and decoration sold in our London rooms, 2nd May 2000, lot 732; and a Daoguang vessel, from the Yongzhitang collection, sold at Christie's Singapore, 30th March 1998, lot 263.

Rose Kerr suggests, op.cit., p. 114, that such ewers were for the use on a Buddhist altar of the Tibetan-inspired lamaist sect which delighted in exotic monster decorations and beaded borders. The Qianlong emperor was a keen follower of Tibetan Buddhism and is known to have commissioned the making of wares used in religious ceremonies or for worship.