A fine and extraordinarily large white jade meiping Qing Dynasty, Qianlong period

THIS IS A PREMIUM LOT. CLIENTS WHO WISH TO BID ON PREMIUM LOTS ARE REQUESTED TO COMPLETE THE PREMIUM LOT PRE-REGISTRATION 3 WORKING DAYS PRIOR TO THE SALE.




of slender tapering form resting on a stepped footring with slightly sunken base, superbly carved with high shoulders and a short cylindrical neck, the lipped mouth comparatively wide in order to hollow out the interior, the exterior finely carved with a band of pendant foliate blades enclosing plantain leaves, and four stylised foliate stems from which a delicately petalled lotus flower hangs, with further lotus blooms hanging in-between on interlacing beribboned stems, the shoulder with interlocking ruyi heads, each containing an intricately incised lotus flower, the base encircled with a band of alternating large upright curled trefoil leaves enclosing lush plantain leaves and smaller leaves, the stone of a transluent green white tone with some minor russet inclusions

Collection of William Clayton.

The overall condition is very good with only two minute 2mm nicks to the footrim. The jade retains much of its natural russet patches and a few veins. The interior is very well-hollowed.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

It is very rare to find a jade vase of meiping shape, or any jade vessel of this large size, and the present vase is the only known example of this shape in white jade. Its superb carving and elaborate designs reflect the high standard of technical virtuosity of the jade carvers in the Imperial Workshops during the Qianlong period. Jade vases are much more commonly found in pear shape, since the hollowing-out through the mouth of the wide shoulder of the meiping requires particular skills and represents in itself a tour-de-force. It is also for these technical reasons that the mouth on the present piece is proportionally wider than on the traditional meiping form encountered in porcelain.

The shape is borrowed from porcelain and was first perfected during the Song dynasty, to be reinvented during the successive Ming and Qing dynasties. The only other jade meiping that are published are all carved out of spinach-green jade and considerably smaller in size, compare for example two spinach-green jade meiping in the Palace Museum, Beijing, both of similar overall proportions, but decorated differently, one from the Qing court collection, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Jadeware (fig. 1), vol.III, Hong Kong, 1995, pl.64; the other in Zhongguo yuqi quanji (fig. 2), vol.6, Shijiazhuang, 1993, pl.151. The most closely related spinach-green vase is the former, with its wide mouth, decorative registers and lappet bands enclosing formal lotus buds and blooms.

The ornate, stylized designs of interlacing ribbons and pendant lotus blooms document the strong influence of European styles at the Imperial Court during the reign of Qianlong. The overall decoration of the piece was certainly inspired by a porcelain prototype and indeed contemporary porcelain vases with related designs both in blue and white and copper-red were produced for the court. Compare for example a meiping decorated in underglaze copper-red around the body with European-inspired formal scrolls of lotus and peony, between pendant lappets at the shoulder and rising plantain leaves around the base, sold in our London rooms, 20^th June 2001, lot 27.

The quality of the jade material, not to mention the size of the vase, tentatively places it in the second part of the Qianlong reign, after the Western campaigns which subjugated the Dzungars and secured control over the area of Khotan and Yarkand, in present day Xinjiang, where the finest nephrite was mined. Prior to the conquest, jade came in relatively small boulders to the Imperial Workshops and many poems of the Emperor deplore the scarcity of the material, but thereafter large quantities were imported each year as tribute. The superb quality of the high polish, characteristic of later Qianlong jades, appears to confirm this attribution.

With the increased supply of jade came the growth of the jade carving industry, and in order to keep up with the demands of the Qianlong Emperor, two workshops were established within the Forbidden City, while occasionally pieces were commissioned from private workshops in the southern cities of Suzhou, Nanjing and Yangzhou. The strong European influence on the present meiping undoubtedly indicates that it would have been produced within the Imperial workshops, as southern workshops would not have been exposed to this new artistic trend.