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Lot Essay
This vase is a very rare example of a painted enamel vessel adopting the form and decoration of a famille rose, or fencai overglaze enamelled porcelain type. So called 'hundred deer' vases are well known and much prized among the porcelains of the Qianlong reign.
The theme of 'hundred deer' was adopted on porcelains in the middle Ming period, and can be seen on a Wanli (AD 1573-1620) wucai jar in the Musée Guimet, Paris (illustrated in The World's Great Collections - Oriental Ceramics Vol. 7 - Musée Guimet, Paris, Kodansha, Tokyo, 1981, no. 26) and on the pair of large blue and white Wanli jars given to Queen Christina of Sweden by the Portuguese Ambassador (see The World's Great Collections - Oriental Ceramics Vol. 8 - Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, Kodansha, Tokyo, 1982, fig. 247). The theme of deer was obviously one close to the Qianlong emperor's heart, as can be seen in numerous court paintings dating to his reign as well as the porcelain 'hundred deer' vases. His appreciation of the theme also extended to cloisonné since a plaque from the collection of S. Soames, decorated with a river landscape through which wander the 'hundred deer' (see Sir Harry Garner, Chinese and Japanese Cloisonné Enamels, Faber & Faber, London, 1962, p. 93 and pl. 77), is inscribed on the back of the plaque with a Qianlong poem in which the emperor refers to the deer with their young in the royal park, and how they are free from fear because they are safe guarded by imperial decree from attack by archers with their arrows.
See an almost identical yellow ground painted enamel 'hundred deer' vase, dated Qianlong-Jiaqing period, sold at Christie's London, 14 May 2013, lot 150.
The theme of 'hundred deer' was adopted on porcelains in the middle Ming period, and can be seen on a Wanli (AD 1573-1620) wucai jar in the Musée Guimet, Paris (illustrated in The World's Great Collections - Oriental Ceramics Vol. 7 - Musée Guimet, Paris, Kodansha, Tokyo, 1981, no. 26) and on the pair of large blue and white Wanli jars given to Queen Christina of Sweden by the Portuguese Ambassador (see The World's Great Collections - Oriental Ceramics Vol. 8 - Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, Kodansha, Tokyo, 1982, fig. 247). The theme of deer was obviously one close to the Qianlong emperor's heart, as can be seen in numerous court paintings dating to his reign as well as the porcelain 'hundred deer' vases. His appreciation of the theme also extended to cloisonné since a plaque from the collection of S. Soames, decorated with a river landscape through which wander the 'hundred deer' (see Sir Harry Garner, Chinese and Japanese Cloisonné Enamels, Faber & Faber, London, 1962, p. 93 and pl. 77), is inscribed on the back of the plaque with a Qianlong poem in which the emperor refers to the deer with their young in the royal park, and how they are free from fear because they are safe guarded by imperial decree from attack by archers with their arrows.
See an almost identical yellow ground painted enamel 'hundred deer' vase, dated Qianlong-Jiaqing period, sold at Christie's London, 14 May 2013, lot 150.