Lot 3440
  • 3440

A RARE YELLOW-GROUND GREEN OVERLAY GLASS ‘CHILONG’ BOTTLE VASE SEAL MARK AND PERIOD OF QIANLONG |

Estimate
800,000 - 1,000,000 HKD
bidding is closed

Description

  • 17.8 cm, 7 in.
with a globular body rising from a short splayed foot to a tall gently flaring neck, skilfully carved through the green overlay to the yellow ground, the globular body decorated with a broad frieze enclosing two pairs of confronting chilong, each mythical beast with an elongated body neatly rendered in angular scrollwork, between varying bands of pendent and upright lappets, the neck adorned with a pair of chilong clambering amidst ruyi motifs, all between two green bands encircling the rim and foot, the base wheel-cut with a six-character seal mark

Provenance

Collection of Liliane Fould-Springer (1916-2003) and Elie de Rothschild (1917-2007).

Catalogue Note

This extremely rare overlaid glass vase, inscribed with a Qianlong six-character seal mark, is intricately decorated in vivid emerald-green overlays against a rich yellow ground. The powerful archaistic dragon decoration encapsulates the Qianlong Emperor’s reverence for antiquity. The only other closely related example appears to be another overlaid glass vase in the Machida City Museum, illustrated in The Glass the Galle Adored. Glass from the Qing Imperial Collection, Suntory Museum of Art, Tokyo, 2018, p. 66, cat. no. 42. It shares the same distinctive decorative technique of chilong with elongated bodies neatly rendered in angular scrollwork, differing from the current vase in that the colour scheme is black on yellow. For another Qianlong glass vase sharing the same rare six-character seal mark, see an amber glass vase in the collection of Robert H. Clague, decorated with a pair of chilong above a diaper-patterned shawl, included in the exhibition Chinese Glass of the Qing Dynasty, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, 1987, cat. no. 15.