A large Ge-type moonflask, Seal mark and period of Yongzheng | 清雍正 仿哥釉海棠式抱月瓶 《大清雍正年製》款

Collection of Dr Wou Kiuan (1910-1997).

Wou Lien-Pai Museum, coll. no. Q.8.30.

吳權博士 (1910-1997) 收藏

吳蓮伯博物院，編號Q.8.30

Rose Kerr et al., Chinese Antiquities from the Wou Kiuan Collection. Wou Lien-Pai Museum, Hong Kong, 2011, pl. 151.

柯玫瑰等，《Chinese Antiquities from the Wou Kiuan Collection. Wou Lien-Pai Museum》，香港，2011年，圖版151

Well potted with a quatrefoil-shaped body, this magnificent moonflask is representative of some of the most challenging porcelain shapes, sizes and glazes made under the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1723-1735). Both its form and glaze are borrowed from sources in Chinese antiquity which under Yongzheng Emperor's demands served as a source of inspiration for innovation. From the first year of his reign, the Emperor commissioned items from the Palace Workshops, whose output changed in nature as a result. Simplicity of form and absence of decoration were stylistic trends introduced by Tang Ying (1682-1756), who was appointed as Superintendent of the Imperial kilns in Jingdezhen on the 6th year of the Yongzheng reign. Under his supervision, research into celebrated Song wares such as Ru, Guan, Ge and Jun saw the re-emergence of monochrome porcelains covered in luminous yet deceptively simple glazes which were made to simulate earlier wares on both contemporary and archaistic forms. The unctuous crackled creamy-grey glaze that covers the entire surface of this moonflask was made in imitation of Ge ware, one of the 'Five Great Wares' of the Song dynasty (960-1279). 

The present octagonal flak retains only a basic relationship to the original form, an archaic bronze flask, bianhu. The potter who conceived the shape of the present vessel rejuvenated the form, maintaining the original faintly elliptical, circular outline of the archaic flask and combining it with the rounded silhouette of a floral bloom. The new shape was then covered with a Ge-type glaze, successfully producing a contemporary innovation with archaic aesthetics.

Compare a closely related example in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, museum no. zhong-ci-0044610-N000000000; another, sold twice in our Hong Kong rooms, 20th May 1986, lot 86 and again, 8th April 2011, lot 3017; and a third example, sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 26th November 2014, lot 3274.