An impressive ruby-ground 'yangcai' sgraffiato 'lotus' vase, Seal mark and period of Qianlong

Asian Private Collection. 

Christie's Hong Kong, 29th November 2022, lot 3007. 

Treasures of Hong Kong: The 20th Anniversary of Hong Kong's Handover, Capital Museum, Beijing, 2018, cat. no. 188.

The porcelains produced by the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen for the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1735-1795) are characterized by the phenomenal opulence of their decoration as well as the rich spectrum of their enamels. The present vase with its radiant colors and delicate sgraffiato work is no exception. Although these colored enamels and Rococo floral designs brought by European artisans were known to the Qing court as yangcai, 'foreign colors', as time went on and techniques developed, one begins to observe in these masterpieces a true synthesis of foreign and Chinese motifs: a celebration of world craftsmanship, perfected in China.

The Rococo style, with its exuberant use of interlaced C- and S-shaped curves, originated in Paris in the early eighteenth century and quickly spread throughout France, Germany, Italy and beyond. It was a light and mellifluous style, that breathed fresh air into the heavier baroque art and architecture in Europe and similarly introduced a more cheerful element into the more sedate aesthetics that had prevailed in the Kangxi (1661-1722) and Yongzheng (1722-1735) reigns. 

Although some ruby-ground yangcai pieces appear so Rococo in style that they could be attributed to European artisans, the present vase seamlessly blends the leaf-scrolls and pastel flowers of Europe with the characteristic Chinese shape of the auspicious ruyi emerging from the background. Indeed, though the decoration of this vase may owe much to European design influences, its archaistic hu shape is firmly rooted in Chinese history, inspired by the ancient bronzes that once stood in its place as symbols of power and opulence.

Sgraffiato, or sgraffito – the carving through a surface layer to reveal a contrasting layer below – is a versatile technique that has been long been used in ceramics around the world, and came to prominence in China as early as the Song dynasty (960-1279), for example, at the Yaozhou and Cizhou kilns. As enameling on porcelain developed, the sgraffiato technique was adapted once again, carving through a layer of enamel, down to the glazed porcelain underneath and revealing the design in white. This development appeared around the same time in both the imperial enameling workshops of the Forbidden City and the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen though the latter tended to produce more delicate elevated designs than the former's more formal diaper grounds. Liao Pao Show attributes the introduction of this technique to Jingdezhen to a increased effort from 1741 onwards by Tang Ying (1682-1756), the long-time supervisor of the imperial kilns, to please the Qianlong Emperor, after the latter had criticized the porcelain production of the previous years, see Huali cai ci: Qianlong yangcai/Stunning Decorative Porcelains from the Ch'ien-lung Reign, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2008, pp 10-41.

Only one other vase of this elegant floral design and archaistic hu shape is known and was almost certainly made as a pair to the present lot. This vase, of almost identical design and proportions, is preserved in the collection of the Hakone Museum of Art in Kanagawa, Japan and illustrated in Toji Taikei: Shin no Kanyo [Ceramic Great Series: Qing Dynasty Imperial Wares], Tokyo, 1973, pl. 76 (Fig. 1).

Several such yangcai vases with ruby-colored ground are preserved in the National Palace Museum, Taipei: see two vases, together with a wall vase, included in the exhibition Huali cai ci, op.cit., cat. nos 18, 19 and 22, all dated by Liao Pao Show to 1741; others attributed to 1743, cat. nos 31, 42 and 43; and contemporary falangcai porcelains with sgraffiato decoration, cat. nos 81-87 and 91-96. A pair to one of these vases is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, see Geng Baochang, ed., Gugong Bowuyuan cang gu taoci ciliao xuancui [Selection of ancient ceramic material from the Palace Museum], Beijing 2005, vol. 2, pl. 204; and another, similar to a pair in Taipei, is in the Capital Museum, Beijing, see Shoudu Bowuguan cang ci xuan [Selection of porcelains from the Capital Museum], Beijing, 1991, pl. 155.

Outside of the museums in Taipei and Beijing, yangcai vases with ruby-red sgraffiato designs are exceedingly rare and no other vases of this shape and design appear to have ever arrived on the market. Compare one meiping decorated with floral scrolls on a ruby sgraffiato ground, from the collections of Alfred Morrison and Lord Margadale of Islay, part of the Fonthill Heirlooms and later the collection of Roger Lam, which featured in numerous exhibitions and publications, sold in our London rooms, 8th/9th July 1974, lot 416, and three times in our Hong Kong rooms, 1980, 1988, and finally 31st October 2004, lot 131; a pair to this meiping is also found in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong. Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 361, pl. 42; a pair of ruby-ground sgraffiato vases, reputedly from the imperial collection, is in the Yale University Art Gallery, one of the two illustrated in George J. Lee, Selected Far Eastern Art in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven & London, 1970, pl. 53; and finally another grand vase of danping ('gall bladder vase') shape was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 3rd April 2018, lot 3622; its companion piece on a sgraffiato blue ground is found in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from the collection of Barbara D. Denielson (accession no. 1980.497).