QIANLONG FOUR-CHARACTER MARK IN DOUBLE SQUARES IN BLUE ENAMEL AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)

A small number of enamelled clear glass vessels for the scholar's table, bearing blue-enamelled Qianlong marks, have been published. A water pot from the A.W. Bahr and Paul and Helen Bernat collections was included in The China Institute of America 1990 exhibition Clear as Crystal, Red as Flame, Later Chinese Glass, Catalogue, no. 23; and again, in the Min Chiu Society Exhibition, Splendour of the Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1992, illustrated in the Catalogue, p. 417, no. 284. Two brush washers in this style have been published: one sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 April 1996, lot 33; the other was illustrated by Hugh Moss, 'Enamelled Glass Wares of the Ku Yueh Hsuan Group', Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, vol. X, no. 2, June 1978, pl. 14, no. 7, where Moss states that 'this type of enamelled clear glass ware is of the highest quality of any known from China'. A clear glass water pot enamelled with the Eight Buddhist Emblems, formerly in the Mary and George Bloch Collection, was sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 23 October 2005, lot 146.