AN EXCEPTIONAL AND LARGE GOLD-SPLASHED BRONZE LOBED 'MYTHICAL BEASTS' VASE QING DYNASTY, EARLY 18TH CENTURY

of quatrefoil section, robustly cast with a baluster body rising to a tall waisted neck and flared rim, the neck flanked by a pair of loop handles in the form of a dragon's head, each lobed side of the bulbous body cast with a well-rendered relief prancing mythical beast, portrayed with a ferocious expression and finely picked out mane and tail, the two wider sides with a suanni, the shorter with a xiezhi, the base centred with an apocryphal four-character Xuande seal mark within a rectangular cartouche, applied liberally with splashes of gold of varying sizes, the patina of warm caramel-brown colour

Property of John Sparks Ltd., London, 1991.
Christie's London, 9th December 1991, lot 54.
Sydney L. Moss Ltd., London.

Philip K. Hu, Later Chinese Bronzes - The Saint Louis Art Museum and Robert Kresko Collections, St. Louis, 2008, cat. no. 21.

It is extremely rare to find a gold-splashed vase of this imposing size and exceptional quality. Skilfully cast of quatrelobed form and intricately decorated with mythical beasts in relief, it is a tour-de-force of workmanship, reflecting the greatest output of bronze artisans working in the early 18th century. The crispness of the casting and the overall quality of the form and finish points to it being of the Yongzheng period, when production was at the apex of quality. 

A smaller gold-splashed bronze vase of bottle form, applied with leonine mask handles sharing similar characteristics to the mythical beasts on the current vase, was sold in our New York rooms, 20th March 2012, lot 82. For a cloisonne enamel vase of similar form in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, see Sir Harry Garner, Chinese and Japanese Cloisonne Enamels, London, 1962, pl. 64, and illustrated in Gugong wenwu yuekan (The National Palace Museum Monthly of Chinese Art), vol. 11, no. 12, cumulative no. 132 (March 1994). The cloisonne vase is incised with a Jingtai mark, but dates to the late 16th / early 17th century.

For another bronze vase of this form, see an example from the Hosokawa Morisada (1912-2005) collection, preserved in the Eisei-Bunko Museum, Tokyo, illustrated in Ittokuroku, Tokyo, Chuo koronsha, p. 26, pl. 30.

A group of porcelain bottle vases from the Kangxi period also shares decorative elements with the current vase. See the treatment of the mythical beasts vividly painted in underglaze-red on a Kangxi period bottle vase, sold in these rooms, 13th November 1990, lot 260.