A fine Ming-style blue and white 'fruits' vase (Meiping), Seal mark and period of Qianlong | 清乾隆 青花折技花果紋梅瓶 《大清乾隆年製》款

Acquired in Los Angeles in the 1960s, and thence by descent. 

1960年代得於洛杉磯，此後家族傳承

A closely related vase, from the E.T. Chow Collection and sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 19th May 1981, lot 546, is illustrated in Michel Beurdeley and Guy Raindre, Qing Porcelain, London, 1987, pl. 153; and another is published in Chinese Porcelain. The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, Hong Kong, 1987, pl. 63, where Julian Thompson discusses this group of Qing blue and white wares as painted with 're-designs' of Yongle patterns with changes of detail, particularly in the borders and with simulated 'heaping and piling' of cobalt blue (see p. 28). For the 15th century prototype of this design compare a meiping in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Minji meijin zuroku, vol. 1, Tokyo, 1977, pl. 12. Two other vases are illustrated in The Ardebil Shrine Collection, Hong Kong, 1981, cat. nos A69 and A70.

For further examples of vases of this type, see one from the T.Y Chao Collection, included in the exhibition Ming and Ch'ing Porcelain from the Collection of the T.Y. Chao Family Foundation, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1978, cat. no. 79, sold as one of a pair in these rooms, 24th May 1974, lot 420, and again in our Hong Kong rooms, 19th May 1989, lot 270; another sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 29th April 1992, lot 126, and again at Christie's Hong Kong, 29th November 2007, lot 1686; and a third example sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 28th October 2002, lot 699, and again in our Hong Kong rooms, 9th October 2007, lot 1564. Another example was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 8th October 2010, lot 2635.