A HIGHLY IMPORTANT AND VERY RARE CELADON-GLAZED RETICULATED HEXAGONAL VASE SEAL MARK AND PERIOD OF QIANLONG

superbly potted with a body of hexagonal section, each side skilfully pierced in openwork with a reticulated trapezoidal panel of meandering foliate scrolls bearing a large lotus bloom above a peony flower-head and multiple curled trefoil leaves, all below a band of stylised 'T'-scrolls carved in low relief at the tapering shoulders and a collar of upright overlapping archaistic foliate blades around the tall waisted neck, the generously everted rim further carved with a border of alternating ruyi-heads and pomegranate fruit pendants, all supported on an angular stepped foot decorated with a band of archaistic zoomorphic scrolls, the vase evenly applied with a warm celadon-green glaze of bluish tones, paling slightly along the edges of the raised carving giving depth and emphasis to the designs, the openwork panels ingeniously carved to reveal an inner vase of conforming shape painted in deep 'heaped and piled' tones of cobalt-blue with a continuous floral scroll between ruyi-head pendants at the shoulders and upright lappets at the base, stand

Quantity: 2

PROVENANCE

Sotheby's New York, 12th June 1984, lot 292.

CATALOGUE NOTE

Vases with pierced panels revealing a differently decorated inner core were an innovation of the early Qianlong period, when the Imperial kiln at Jingdezhen was under the guidance of the talented superintendant, Tang Ying. Tang Ying's in depth knowledge of porcelain making along with his ingenious feel for designs helped raise the level of this art form to new excellence. Reticulated wares were only made for a short period and they are technical marvels which required the utmost mastery of the shaping, painting, glazing, firing and in some case enamelling process in the Imperial manufactories. The Qianlong emperor, like his grand-father the Kangxi Emperor, was fascinated by technical innovations and mechanical trinkets and toys. He was a keen collector of rare objects and encouraged the making of 'unusual' wares such as the present piece. Qianlong became the ideal patron for the development of technical innovations in porcelain making.

Reticulated vases are known in a variety of forms and designs. The present example is particularly successful for its brilliant glaze and delicately pierced panels that give the illusion of a view through a Chinese lattice window. Through this window one gets a glimpse of the inner bottle superbly painted in Ming style as if providing a view back into the past.

This design was probably executed only this present piece, and the companion piece is still in the Palace Museum, Beijing, from the Qing Court collection, see Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong: Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, pl. 122.

Another related pair of reticulated hexagonal vases is recorded, of the same shape and with a similar blue-and-white design inside, but with differently shaped and pierced windows and enamelled in the famille rose palette on a cafe-au-lait ground; one of them, from the collection of Alfred Morrison and originally probably from the Yuanmingyuan, the imperial summer palace on the outskirts of Beijing, and now in the Chang Foundation, Taiwan, was sold in these rooms, 18th May 1988, lot 272, and is illustrated in James Spencer, Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Taipei, 1990, pl. 163, and in Sotheby's Hong Kong Twenty Years, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 297; the other was also sold in these rooms, 2nd May 2000, lot 639, and is illustrated in Sotheby's: Thirty Years in Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2003, pl.336.

Compare also an ovoid reticulated turquoise-ground vase with floral-scroll piercing, from the collection of John T. Dorrance, Jr., sold in our New York rooms, 20th October 1989, lot 357, and again in these rooms, 1st November 1994, lot 198.

This reticulated vase and its pair in the Palace Museum, Beijing, together with its famille-rose counterparts, may well represent the earliest successful examples of this ceramic tour-de-force by the Qianlong period potters in Jingdezhen. Indeed, the calligraphy of the mark and its execution in underglaze-blue both indicate a close proximity with the Yongzheng period, when such fanciful shapes were rarely produced. Under Yongzheng, the only attempt at producing flamboyant vases - though not reticulated - are the large famille-rose hexagonal gu-shaped vases with intricate moulded designs, such as the one in the collection of W. T. Walters illustrated by S. W. Bushell, Oriental Ceramic Art, 1980 ed., pl.XX, which certainly date to the later part of the reign. There is a strong similarity between these Yongzheng vases and the famille-rose version of our present piece, particularly evident in the use of the iron-red on the moulded details, as well as the gilding applied on the caf?au-lait ground, which further suggests an early Qianlong date for the group.