A fine blue and white meiping, Seal mark and period of Qianlong

A fine blue and white meiping, Seal mark and period of Qianlong. photo courtesy Sotheby's

the broad shouldered gracefully tapering body rising from a recessed base to a narrow short waisted neck with everted rim, painted in the Ming style in rich tones of cobalt blue with detached flowering peony, camellia and prunus sprays above fruiting pomegranate, lychee and peach sprays, all between a stiff leaf band at the base and a lappet collar, the neck with four stylised floral sprigs, the base with an underglaze-blue seal mark; 32.5 cm., 12 3/4 in. Estimate 4,000,000—6,000,000 HKD. Lot Sold 6,980,000 HKD

PROVENANCE: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 20th May 1986, lot 41.

NOTE: A closely related vase, from the E.T. Chow collection and sold in these rooms, 19^th May 1981, lot 546, is illustrated in Michel Beurdeley and Guy Raindre, Qing Porcelain, London, 1987, pl. 153; and another is published in Chinese Porcelain. The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, Hong Kong, 1987, pl. 63, where Julian Thompson discusses this group of Qing blue and white wares as painted with 're-designs' of Yongle patterns with changes of detail, particularly in the borders and with simulated 'heaping and piling' of cobalt blue (see p. 28). For the 15^th century prototype of this design compare a meiping in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Minji meijin zuroku, vol. 1, Tokyo, 1977, pl. 12.

For further examples of vases of this type, see one from the T.Y Chao collection, included in the exhibition Ming and Ch'ing Porcelain from the Collection of the T.Y. Chao Family Fondation, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1978, cat. no. 79, sold as one of a pair in our New York rooms, 24^th May 1974, lot 420, and again in these rooms, 19^th May 1989, lot 270; another sold in these rooms, 29^th April 1992, lot 126, and again at Christie's Hong Kong, 29^th November 2007, lot 1686; and a third example sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 28^th October 2002, lot 699, and again in these rooms, 9^th October 2007, lot 1564.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, 08 Oct 10 11:00 AM, Hong Kong www.sothebys.com