A GUAN-TYPE FACETED VASE (HU) QIANLONG SEAL MARK AND PERIOD |

the pear-shaped body of quadrangular section with canted corners, all supported on a straight foot and set with two lug handles at the neck, covered overall in a creamy pale bluish-green glaze suffused with fine taupe-colored craquelure, the base with a six-character seal mark in underglaze blue

Collection of Stephen Junkunc, III (d. 1978).

The form of the present vase is based on Shang and Zhou dynasty bronze wine vessels, however, the unctuous pale bluish-green glaze suffused with fine craquelure evokes Song dynasty guan celadon wares that also imitated ancient ritual vessels. The Qianlong Emperor revered both, and this vase attests to the Imperial ceramicists' ingenuity in utilizing historical precedents in the creation of new works that met the Emperor's exacting standards for quality and antiquarian taste. A similar vase in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei is published in the Illustrated Catalogue of the Ch'ing Dynasty Porcelain in the National Palace Museum Ch'ien-lung Ware and Other Wares, Tokyo, 1981, pl. 82; one from the Art Gallery of the Chinese University of Hong Kong was included in the exhibition Qing Imperial Porcelain of the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong Reigns, Hong Kong, 1995, cat. no. 63; and two vases of this type, one with a crackled glaze and the other with a plain guan-type glaze, are published in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. II, London, 1994, pls 874 and 875. Two further vases of this type are illustrated in Qing Imperial Monochromes: The Zande Lou Collection, Hong Kong, 2005, pl. 32; another is illustrated by John Ayers in The Baur Collection, Geneva, vol. III, 1972, no. A344; and an example from the Garner Collection was included in the Oriental Ceramic Society exhibition The Arts of the Ch'ing Dynasty, London, 1964, cat. no. 276. See also another from the Edward T. Chow Collection sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 25th November 1980, lot 91 and on 19th May 1981, lot 501; a similar vase that sold twice in our Hong Kong rooms, first on 20th November 1985, lot 203, and then again on 6th April 2016, lot 3638; and one without the craquelure sold in these rooms, 20th March 2012, lot 243.