AN EXTREMELY FINE AND RARE SILVER AND GOLD-DECORATED DOUBLE-GOURD TEADUST VASE SEAL MARK AND PERIOD OF QIANLONG

exquisitely and elegantly potted, the globular body rising from a short foot to a waisted slender neck and a small bulbous upper body with a tapering to a small mouthrim, flanked by a pair of undulating strap handles extending from the upper body terminating with a pair of ruyi heads on the shoulder, the handles highlighted with foliate scrollwork, the neck picked out with a pair of petal lappets radiating from a raised ring detailed with circular rings, the upper and lower body similarly decorated with bats rendered with stylised outstretched wings amidst meandering leafy scrolls issuing tendrils and double-gourds of varying sizes, all below a band of pendent ruyi-headed petals encircling the mouthrim, the foot bordered with two double-line borders, all the detail delicately picked out in silver and gilt against the even matte 'teadust'-glaze body, the base with a six-character seal mark

Collection of Alfred E. Hippisley (1848-1939).
The Anderson Galleries, New York (predecessors of Sotheby's New York), 30th/31st January 1925, lot 74.
Collection of J.M. Hu (1911-95), Zandelou Collection.
Sotheby's New York, 4th June 1985, lot 36.
Christie's Hong Kong, 28th November 2005, lot 1311.

United States National Museum, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., on loan, 1887-1912.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, on loan, 2013-14.

Alfred Edward Hippisley, A Sketch of the History of Ceramic Art in China: With a Catalogue of the Hippisley Collection of Chinese Porcelains, Washington D.C., 1902, pl. 13 centre, no. 226.
Helen D. Ling and E.T. Chow, Collection of Chinese Ceramics from the Pavilion of Ephemeral Attainment, Hong Kong, 1950, vol. IV, pl. 197.

The vase is in fine condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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."

The Hippisley ‘Teadust’ Double Gourd
Regina Krahl

This outstanding vase carries the flamboyant and luxuriant aura of the best Qianlong (1736-95) imperial works of art, made in the early part of the reign, under the supervision of Tang Ying (1682-1756), free from the garishness that increasingly encroached upon Qianlong artefacts towards the latter part of the reign. Although the bright and shimmering gilt and silvered decoration would seem the ideal complement of the dark and matt ‘teadust’ glaze, this combination seems to have been accomplished extremely rarely, and this vase appears to be totally unique.

A ‘teadust’-glazed candlestick of double-gourd form painted with gilt and silvered floral scrolls as well as additional enamels, from the Qing court collection is still preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Monochrome Porcelain, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 249; and a hexagonal vase with stylised dragon handles, decorated with formalised designs in gilding but with a spurious Jingde mark evoking a Song dynasty (960-1279) reign, instead of a reign mark, from the collection of Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, is in the British Museum, London, illustrated in S.J. Vainker, Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, London, 1991, p. 208, pl. 160. Gilt decoration on a glaze of this ‘teadust’ type was also sometimes used for porcelains imitating archaic bronzes, but all examples appear to be unique and the style never seems to have entered the standard production lines.

The gourd design, in tune with the gourd shape of the vase, and accompanied by bats, is of course highly auspicious, indicative of happiness and affluence.

The ‘teadust’ glaze effect was developed at Jingdezhen in the Yongzheng reign (1723-35), a period when much experimentation took place under Tang Ying as kiln supervisor and the Yongzheng Emperor as an interested and demanding imperial patron. A ‘teadust’ effect had already been achieved on some black wares in the Tang dynasty (618-907), but the somewhat dull greyish-brown tones then created were probably due to accidental underfiring rather than being the result of deliberate experiments and are lacking the liveliness of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) glaze. The glaze created at Jingdezhen in the early 18th century has, according to Nigel Wood (Chinese Glazes, London, 1999, p. 157) not yet been analysed chemically, but appears to have been achieved very differently, its composition probably being more closely related to iron red.

The ‘teadust’ glaze was very popular for vases of this gourd shape and undecorated pieces belong to the classic repertoire of the Qianlong imperial kilns. Related ‘teadust’ glazed vases of Qianlong mark and period but lacking any painted decoration, are usually, however, of somewhat larger size, which suggests that the present vase was created specially, in order to be decorated in this way. For the well-known undecorated ‘teadust’ vases of this form compare, for example, pieces in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Kokyū Shin shi zuroku/Illustrated Catalogue of Ch’ing Dynasty Porcelain in the National Palace Museum, Republic of China. Ch’ien-lung Ware and Other Wares, Tokyo, 1981, pl. 80; in the Chinese National Museum, included in the exhibition Gems of China’s Cultural Relics, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1997-8, cat. no. 144; in the Nanjing Museum, included in the exhibition Qing Imperial Porcelain, Art Gallery, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1995, cat. no. 70; in the Tokyo National Museum from the collection of Yokogawa Tamisuke, published in the Illustrated Catalogue of Tokyo National Museum. Chinese Ceramics II, Tokyo, 1990, no. 701; in the Jingdezhen Ceramic Museum, illustrated in Chūgoku kōgei bijutsu sosho: Chūgoku tōji hen [Chinese arts and crafts series. Chinese ceramics section], vol. 1: Keitokuchin jiki [Jingdezhen porcelain], Kyoto, 1982, p. 87; and in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 938.

The present vase comes from the fabled collection of Alfred E. Hippisley (1848-1939), Commissioner of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service of China between 1876 and 1884 in Shanghai and Beijing, mainly in the latter city. Little is known about him besides this posting and his magnificent Chinese porcelain collection. Having lived and worked in China during the former part of the Guangxu period (1875-1908), he collected Chinese imperial porcelain at a time when few Westerners had access to it and when virtually no literature about it was available. Almost no contemporary collections are otherwise known in Western hands, and the kinds of pieces he acquired were hardly seen in Western collections until many decades thereafter. Clearly he was not only equipped with considerable knowledge and understanding of Chinese imperial works of art, but also with very good connections to be able to assemble his magnificent collection. Several of his pieces ended up in the Sir Percival David Collection and are now in the British Museum, London.

A sale of 286 lots of Qing porcelain from the Hippisley collection was organised in 1925 at Anderson Galleries, predecessors of Sotheby’s in New York (fig. 1). The preface to the Anderson Galleries’ sale catalogue states about the history of the collection: “Experience showed that so large and so valuable a collection could not with safety be moved from one port to another on each occasion of transfer, and it therefore became necessary to secure a temporary home for it pending the owner’s retirement from service in the Far East. The Smithsonian Institution in Washington kindly consented to receive it as a loan collection. There it was installed early in 1887, and there it remained till 1912 – a detailed catalogue of it, compiled by Mr. Hippisley, being issued by the Smithsonian Institution in 1888, and a second edition in 1902.”

In that now extremely rare catalogue by Alfred E. Hippisley, entitled A Sketch of the History of Ceramic Art in China: With a catalogue of the Hippisley Collection of Chinese Porcelains, included in the Report of National Museum, 1900, published in Washington, D.C., 1902 (fig. 2), where the author describes every piece with great erudition and attention to detail, he writes about the present piece (p. 397): “Vase of white Chienlung porcelain, shaped as a gourd contracted at middle (hulu). Entirely covered with an elaborate design of trailing gourds (of same shape as vase) with conventional scroll-like leaves and bats outlined in gold and shaded partly in gold and partly in silver upon a dull olive green or ‘tea dust’ (ch’a-mo) ground. A very rare specimen…”

Although we do not know the buyer at the Anderson sale, the vase soon entered the collection of another renowned collector, J.M. Hu. Hu Jenmou (or Hu Huichun, 1911-1995), the master of the Zande Lou, the Studio of Temporary Enjoyment, had far-reaching, but well-focused interests. He appreciated not only the refinement and dignity of China’s greatest imperial ceramics, but equally the sophistication and individuality of Chinese paintings and calligraphies, and the subtlety and wit of items made for China’s literati-scholars. He was one of China’s great connoisseur-collectors in the traditional sense of the word. At the same time he was a patron and benefactor of modern times with a keen awareness of the educational aspect of an art collection. As his studio name, taken from the influential Lanting Preface of Wang Xizhi, already demonstrates, J.M. Hu formed his collection not just for his personal pleasure, but with a bigger picture in mind. With his large donations of ceramics to the Shanghai Museum, his generous patronage of the Art Gallery of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and other institutions, his impetus in founding the Min Chiu Society, his promotion of publications, his own publishing, his support of exhibitions and research projects, and his personal involvement and enthusiasm, he helped to distribute knowledge and to shape tastes, and thus left his mark on a generation of students and art lovers.