A rare blue-ground famille-rose lantern vase, Shende Tang hall mark, Qing dynasty, Daoguang period | 清道光　藍地粉彩吉慶有餘燈籠瓶　《慎德堂製》款

Yamanaka & Co., Ltd, Osaka, with accompanying letter.

Porcelain bearing the Shende Tang mark is noted for its refined workmanship, surpassing most wares of the same period and recalling the high standards of the earlier Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns, even though it largely follows earlier designs. The present vase was handled by Yamanaka & Co., Ltd, whose accompanying letter also notes that the quality of the white porcelain and the finesse of the painting of Shende Tang wares rival those of the Yongzheng imperial kilns.

Produced at the Jingdezhen imperial kilns by the 13th year of Daoguang (1833) at the latest, these wares were made for his personal use at Shende Tang, the Hall of Prudent Virtue, his principal living and working quarters within the Jiuzhou Qingyan complex of the Yuanmingyuan Summer Palace. The Shende Tang zhi inscription follows the emperor’s own calligraphic style, highlighting the close personal involvement he exercised over this particular group of wares.

Within this group, vases are among the rarer forms. Xu Zhiheng, a late Qing and early Republican scholar and connoisseur of ceramics, noted in his Yinliu zhai shuo ci [Commentary on Porcelain from the Studio of a Wine Lover] that “vases bearing the Shende Tang mark are exceedingly rare, and those extant are of great value,” indicating that such pieces were already regarded as highly prized in his time. Even in the Palace Museums, examples of vases bearing this hall mark remain relatively uncommon.

For its Jiajing prototype, compare two closely related vases: one, with the neck ground down, sold in our Paris rooms, 15th December 2011, lot 304; the other now in the collection of Yu An Tang, Hong Kong. Vases of this type were also produced in a range of ground colours, sometimes with minor variations in the auspicious motifs. For a white-ground example with a Daoguang seal mark in place of the Shende Tang mark, see a vase sold in our London rooms, 11th May 2011, lot 276.

來源

山中商會，大阪（附信函）