QIANLONG SIX-CHARACTER SEAL MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)

The form of the present moonflask is in imitation of Yongle period (1403-1425) prototypes, which are likely to have been inspired by Middle Eastern metalwares. Similar Qianlong blue and white moonflasks of this types are in several museum collections worldwide: one of the same size from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is included in He Li, Chinese Ceramics: A New Comprehensive Survey, New York, 1996, pp. 321-322, pl. 599; two are located in the Idemitsu Museum (49.2 cm. and 50 cm. high, the latter unmarked), both illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Museum Collection, Tokyo, 1987, pp. 362 and 363, pls. 949 and 950; another (49.5 cm. high) in the Shenyang Palace Museum’s collection is illustrated in The Prime Cultural Relics Collected by Shenyang Imperial Palace Museum-The Chinaware, vol. 1, Shengyang, 2007, p. 65, pl. 35; one (50 cm. high) in the Nanjing museum is illustrated in Zhongguo lidai Jingdezhen ciqi, Beijing, 1998, p. 169; one (49.2 cm. high) in the National Museum of China is illustrated in Studies of the Collections of the National Museum of China, Shanghai, 2007, p. 122, pl. 83; and one (49.3 cm. high) in the Taipei National Palace Museum is published in the Blue and White Ware of the Ch’ing Dynasty, vol. 2, Hong Kong, 1968, pp. 50 and 51, pls. 15 and 15a-c.

Compare also a number of examples from private collections including: one (49.6 cm. high) illustrated in The Tsui Museum of Art: Chinese Ceramics-Qing Dynasty, vol. 4, Hong Kong, 1995, pl. 75; one from the Brundage Collection is described by C. and M. Beurdeley in La Ceramique Chinoise, Fribourg, 1974, no. 138; one (49.7 cm. high) from the Edward T. Chow Collection was sold as lot 544 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 19 May 1981; and another (49 cm. high) from the Gerald M. Greenwald Collection was publicised in Two Thousand Years of Chinese Ceramics, 1996, no. 58, and later sold as lot 2826 at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1 December 2010.