A RARE AND IMPORTANT GUAN-TYPE GLAZED PORCELAIN RIBBED VASE

China, Yongzheng mark and period

Cylindrical shape with slightly expanded mouth, thirteen horizontal ribs on the body, the lines of the glaze highlighted in brown, the rim of the base with dark enamel.

19,5 cm high

Provenance: Italian private collection, formerly Alice […] collection (only partially legible label on the base) and Prodan Collection, Rome (label on the base).

The elegant and essential shape of this vase is directly inspired by prototypes from the Song era, including the example of similar size preserved at the National Museum of Taipei (Kuan Ware of the Sung Dynasty, Porcelain of the National Palace Museum, Taipei , 1963, pls. 12 and 13).
Emperor Yongzheng was a great lover of antiquities, as would be his son Qianlong. He therefore promoted with conviction a production of imperial porcelain in Jingdezhen that reproduced the forms and the glorious glazes of the Song period, including the Guan one.
This vase is part of a small group of pieces with characteristics of this type, including the larger one (26,5 cm high) preserved in the Fondation Baur in Geneva (J. Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, Geneva 1999, p. 163, n. 269, inv. A335), the one passed through Christie's Hong Kong on November 26, 2014, lot 3266, with a Longquan-type céladon glaze, the one sold by Christie's Hong Kong in June 2015 with an ‘eel-skin’ glaze, the two with a Ge-type glaze, one from the Greenwald collection (Christie's Hong Kong, 1 December 2010, lot 2823) and the other from the Carl Kempe collection (Sotheby's Paris, 12 June 2008, lot 102).

China, Yongzheng mark and period

Cylindrical shape with slightly expanded mouth, thirteen horizontal ribs on the body, the lines of the glaze highlighted in brown, the rim of the base with dark enamel.

19,5 cm high

Provenance: Italian private collection, formerly Alice […] collection (only partially legible label on the base) and Prodan Collection, Rome (label on the base).

The elegant and essential shape of this vase is directly inspired by prototypes from the Song era, including the example of similar size preserved at the National Museum of Taipei (Kuan Ware of the Sung Dynasty, Porcelain of the National Palace Museum, Taipei , 1963, pls. 12 and 13).
Emperor Yongzheng was a great lover of antiquities, as would be his son Qianlong. He therefore promoted with conviction a production of imperial porcelain in Jingdezhen that reproduced the forms and the glorious glazes of the Song period, including the Guan one.
This vase is part of a small group of pieces with characteristics of this type, including the larger one (26,5 cm high) preserved in the Fondation Baur in Geneva (J. Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, Geneva 1999, p. 163, n. 269, inv. A335), the one passed through Christie's Hong Kong on November 26, 2014, lot 3266, with a Longquan-type céladon glaze, the one sold by Christie's Hong Kong in June 2015 with an ‘eel-skin’ glaze, the two with a Ge-type glaze, one from the Greenwald collection (Christie's Hong Kong, 1 December 2010, lot 2823) and the other from the Carl Kempe collection (Sotheby's Paris, 12 June 2008, lot 102).