An extremely rare 'yangcai' reticulated revolving vase, Seal mark and period of Qianlong |清乾隆 黃地洋彩描金蓮紋鏤空壽字紋如意獸耳轉心瓶 《大清乾隆年製》款

New York Private Collection.

紐約私人收藏

This extraordinary vessel is a tour de force of the technical perfection achieved by the Jingdezhen craftsmen during the Qianlong reign (1736-1795). Yangcai vases of this type, with rotating sections and pierced panels revealing a differently decorated inner core, would probably have presented one of the greatest technical challenges to the imperial kilns. They required the utmost mastery and precision in the designing, shaping, firing and painting processes, combining underglaze blue on the inside with overglaze enamels on the outside, so that only an extremely small group was successfully produced. As special commissions of the Qianlong Emperor, these fascinating vases are unique in design. The present piece is however a particularly rare example, with three, instead of the more typical two, different sections that rotate against each other, further adding to the complexity of the production process. Compare, for example, a double-gourd vase with two revolving sections, preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing (accession no. gu-154806), the lower body with openwork designs of garden scenes enclosed in four medallions and formalized flower patterns in the background, illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong: Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 435, no. 117.

For porcelains with related reticulated designs, see a baluster vase preserved in the Shanghai Museum, painted with formalized flowers against a yellow ground above a band of blue-and-white flower scrolls similar to those on the present piece, the main body adorned with an openwork of diaper and four medallions, illustrated in Zhou Lili, Qingdai Yongzheng-Xuantong guanyao ciqi / Qing Dynasty Official Wares from the Yongzheng to the Xuantong Reign, Shanghai, 2014, p. 308, fig. 5-41; and a bell container in the Palace Museum, Beijing (accession no. gu-152398), decorated with yellow-ground flower and pierced diaper patterns comparable to the middle section of this piece, illustrated in the Museum’s publication, op. cit., p. 426, no. 108.