AN EXTREMELY RARE 'CLAIR-DE-LUNE' GLAZED 'HUNDRED RIB' JAR QING DYNASTY, KANGXI PERIOD

skilfully potted with a baluster body sweeping up to a broad rounded shoulder and a raised rim, all supported on a flat base, the exterior exquisitely divided with precision into one hundred narrow ribs, covered evenly overall save for the base with an unctuous pale milky-blue glaze pooling to a darker tone in the grooves, the unglazed base showcasing the fine body

J.J. Lally & Co., New York.

It is in overall good condition, with only a few minute glaze flakes and bruises to the mouth rim, and a small kiln flake adjacent to a C-shaped firing line to the unglazed base. There is an illegible Chinese ink inscription on the base. The actual colour is slightly warmer than that of the catalogue illustration.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The present jar is remarkable for its precisely potted large form which has been covered in a luminous clair-de-lune glaze. This high-fired glaze, with a cobalt content of about 1%, was first produced by the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen during the Kangxi Emperor’s reign. Known in the West by the nineteenth-century French connoisseurs’ term clair-de-lune (‘moon light’), and in China as tianlan (‘sky blue’), it was one of the most successful monochrome glazes created in Jingdezhen during the Kangxi reign, its soft hue reserved exclusively for imperial porcelains. The colour remained popular throughout the Qing dynasty, but after the Kangxi period lost its delicate tone.

A closely related jar, exhibited on loan at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, was offered in our New York rooms, 6th December 1989, lot 192; one from the Edward T. Chow Collection was sold in these rooms, 25th November 1980, lot 73; and another from the J.M. Hu Collection was sold in our New York rooms, 4th June 1985, lot 29. See also one sold in our London rooms, 10th July 1979, lot 203, and again in these rooms, 20th May 1980, lot 98; and two further jars sold in our New York rooms, one from the collection of William L. Parker, 11th May 1978, lot 212, and the other, 4th December 1984, lot 345.

The form of these jars derives from Longquan celadon wares of the fourteenth century, which were made with covers in the form of a lotus leaf, such as one from the collection of the Ottoman sultans and now in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, included in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, London, 1986, vol. I, pl. 213; and another, in the Tokyo National Museum, published in the Illustrated Catalogue of Tokyo National Museum. Chinese Ceramics II, Tokyo, 1990, cat. no. 14. 

Jars of this type may in the later Qing period have been described as having a Ru glaze, the ribs referred to as ‘hundred folds’ (baizhe). According to the inventory of the Qing imperial court archives, dated to the twelfth month of the eleventh year of the Guangxu period (in accordance with 1885), Ru you ci baizhe xiao yugang yi kou or ‘a small Ru-glazed hundred-fold fish jar’ was stored in the porcelain quarter of Fangyuanju [‘Residence of the aromatic garden’] in the Imperial Summer Palace at Chengde.