.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The mark that appears on the base of these rare vases, Yongqing Changchun (Eternal Celebration of Everlasting Spring), can also be found on more typical Dayazhai wares made for the Empress Cixi, and may have been a reference to one of her residences. After the Tongzhi Emperor reached his age of majority, the dowager empress moved into the Changchun Gong (Palace of Eternal Spring), and lived there for some ten years before she had the Chuxiu Gong (Palace of Harbouring Grace) refurbished and took up residence there.
The size and decorative scheme of the present pair is extremely unusual. A related, but much smaller yellow-ground vase with a similar design, also with a Yongqing Changchun mark, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 26 April 2004, lot 1085, with an identical vase in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Guo Xingkuan and Wang Guangyao, Guanyang Yuci: Gugong bowuyuan cang Qingdai zhici guanyang yu Yuyao (Official Designs and Imperial Porcelain: The Palace Museum’s Collection of Official Porcelain Designs and Porcelains from Imperial Kilns of the Qing Dynasty), Forbidden City Publishing, Beijing, 2007, p. 321.
The original sketch on which the shape and design of the present pair is based is illustrated in Guanyang Yuci (ibid.), p. 320, no. 103. (Fig. 1) According to the note accompanying the sketch, pairs were commissioned in both 'light blue' and yellow grounds. Two pairs of large (2 chi) light-blue ground vases, such as the present pair, were ordered, as well as a number of pairs in smaller sizes.
The size and decorative scheme of the present pair is extremely unusual. A related, but much smaller yellow-ground vase with a similar design, also with a Yongqing Changchun mark, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 26 April 2004, lot 1085, with an identical vase in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Guo Xingkuan and Wang Guangyao, Guanyang Yuci: Gugong bowuyuan cang Qingdai zhici guanyang yu Yuyao (Official Designs and Imperial Porcelain: The Palace Museum’s Collection of Official Porcelain Designs and Porcelains from Imperial Kilns of the Qing Dynasty), Forbidden City Publishing, Beijing, 2007, p. 321.
The original sketch on which the shape and design of the present pair is based is illustrated in Guanyang Yuci (ibid.), p. 320, no. 103. (Fig. 1) According to the note accompanying the sketch, pairs were commissioned in both 'light blue' and yellow grounds. Two pairs of large (2 chi) light-blue ground vases, such as the present pair, were ordered, as well as a number of pairs in smaller sizes.