A rare underglaze-blue and copper-red mallet vase, Mark and period of Kangxi. Photo: Sotheby's
of well-potted baluster form, surmounted by a slender tapering neck, pencilled with four tightly drawn medallions above a scroll-filled upright lappet rising from a herringbone band encircling the very slightly splayed foot, the decoration all in copper-red fired dark in patches and with brighter red speckling, three thin underglaze-blue lines encircling the foot, the recessed base inscribed in underglaze-blue with a six-character reign mark in two horizontal lines; 21.6 cm., 8 1/2 in. Estimate 1,500,000 — 2,000,000 HKD
Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 17th November 1975, lot 60.
Note: This elegant vase represents the the Kangxi Emperor's devotion to Tibetan Buddhism the the appearance of original designs on porcelain during his reign: the swirling three-section gakyil ('Wheel of Joy') that is framed by several bands of design appears to derive from the dharmachakra, the traditional 'The Wheel of Joy', which holds an important place in the Buddhist doctrine.
Vases of this type are held in important private and museum collections worldwide; see one illustrated in Kangxi Wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1998, pl. 7; another published in Porcelains from the Tianjin Municipal Museum, Hong Kong, 1993, pl. 130; and a third vase in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated together with an underglaze-blue version in Oriental Ceramics. The World's Great Collections, vol. 11, Tokyo, 1982, pl. 119. Further examples of copper-red vases of this type include a pair from the J.M. Hu collection, sold in our New York rooms, 4th June 1985, lot 20; and one in the Meiyintang collection, published in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 4, part II, London, 2010, pl. 1706.
Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art. Hong Kong | 08 Apr 2014 -www.sothebys.com