A doucai and famille-rose 'sanduo' moon flask, Seal mark and period of Qianlong | 清乾隆 鬪彩加粉彩福壽三多雙蝠耳扁壺 《大清乾隆年製》款

Rarely have the doucai and fencai (famille rose) palettes been as successfully combined as on this impressive moonflask, which celebrates the creative breadth of porcelain production under the Qianlong Emperor with its brilliant colour palette. Only one pair of such vases, though with dragon handles, appears to have been produced.

The doucai painting style, with its delicate drawing in fine blue outlines and its colouration in polychrome washes, was the archetypal style of decoration in the Chenghua reign when the colours were still limited to a few bright shades. It was only by the end of the Kangxi reign that the fencai palette, with its wide range of tones and subtle pastel tints, became available. The first trials in combining the two colour schemes began in the Yongzheng period, but were generally restricted to small touches of fencai enamels included among typical doucai designs.

This moon flask represents a very ambitious combination of the two colour schemes, since the full famille rose enamel palette is here used with the underglaze-blue outlines that are characteristic of doucai. Although aesthetically most satisfactory and striking, the marriage of these two painting techniques remained rare. An achievement of the Qianlong period, the full incorporation of the doucai and famille rose palettes was usually applied only to the depiction of flowers and clothes to enhance the overall visual effect.

Only one other pair of vessels of this design appears to be recorded: one flask was formerly in the collection of the British Rail Pension Fund, sold in these rooms, 16th May 1989, lot 87, and included in the Special Exhibition. Chinese Ceramics, Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, 1994, cat. no. 342; the other flask was sold twice, first in these rooms, 8th November 1982, lot 204, then at Christie's Hong Kong, 8th October 1990, lot 525, subsequently entered the collections of the Tsui Museum of Art and Joseph Lau.

The design of this piece is known from a closely related moonflask with a wider foot, and handles in the form of bats, which is painted in doucai only, from the collection of Iver Munthe Daae, now in the collection of the National Museum, Oslo (accession no. OK-03389), and included in the exhibition Daae Samlingen, Kunstindustrimuseet i Oslo, Oslo, 1989-90, catalogue p. 38. Thanks to the colours of the famille rose palette, the fruits on the present moonflask that are delicately shaded in layered tones of pink, purple, yellow and lime-green, are represented much more naturalistically compared with those on the Oslo vessel. The skin of the peaches is particularly sensitively painted in a range of gradations and the seeds of the pomegranates are carefully rendered as if reflecting light – effects not available with the doucai palette.

鬪彩瓷，創燒於明成化一朝，青花作勾勒，滿填各色釉上彩，色彩選擇仍有侷限。粉彩創於康熙晚期，色系更豐富，增添許多淡雅柔美的色調，雍正年間，初次嘗試結合二者，但多限於在鬪彩瓷上，些微增添少量粉彩釉色。此扁壺，以鬪彩、粉彩技法相綴，華麗尊貴，珍稀非凡，展現乾隆窰造瓷技術之創新。現知乾窰存世例子僅見本品及一對相類龍耳例。

本品紋飾以青花勾勒，填以粉彩，大膽結合二種技法，視覺效果明豔繽紛，強而有力，極為罕見，實為乾隆御瓷之範例。

存世僅見一對相似雙龍耳例，其一曾屬英國鐵路基金會藏品，1989年5月16日售於香港蘇富比，編號87，並錄於《特別展：中国の陶磁》，東京國立博物館，1994年，編號342；另一先售於香港蘇富比1982年11月8日，編號204，再售於香港1990年10月8日，編號525，後經徐氏藝術館及劉鑾雄遞藏。

與此器相類作例，參考 Iver Munthe Daae 舊藏一件鬪彩扁瓶，足較寬，蝙蝠耳，現藏奧斯陸國立美術博物館，藏品編號 OK-03389，展出於《Daae Samlingen》，Kunstindustrimuseet i Oslo，奧斯陸，1989-90年，頁38。本品桃紋，以粉彩細緻色調相綴，粉紅、紫、黃、淺綠，烘托出碩果豐美之色彩變化，與奧斯陸博物館藏品相比，更加自然寫實，桃實、石榴子描寫細膩，色彩漸層柔和，光影綽綽，乃鬪彩無可及之。