A large Guan-type vase, seal mark and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735)

Lot 3638. A large Guan-type vase, seal mark and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735); 31.5 cm, 12 1/2 in. Estimate 1,000,000 — 1,500,000 HKD (127,390 - 191,085 USD). Courtesy Sotheby's.

of archaistic hu form, the pear-shaped body supported on a short spreading foot and rising to a tall neck flanked by a pair of tubular handles below the everted rim, covered overall with a rich bluish-grey glaze suffused with a matrix of gold and grey crackles .

Provenance: Collection of Vernon Wethered, inventory no. 230, by repute.
Christie's London, 13th December 1982, lot 612.
Sotheby's London, 20th June 2001, lot 19.
Sotheby's London, 12th July 2006, lot 133.
An important American private collection.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 8th October 2009, lot 1637.

Note: It is rare to find a guan-type vase of this form and of Yongzheng mark and period, although a similar piece with a more densely crackled grey-green glaze of ge-type was sold in these rooms, 26th October 1993, lot 96.

Another Yongzheng vase of this shape but with a flambé glaze, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Monochrome Porcelain, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 180.