A Chinese Imperial blue glazed ritual offering vessel and co...

Hammer

£11,500

A Chinese Imperial blue glazed ritual offering vessel and cover, gui, moulded Qianlong seal mark and of the period (1736-95), modelled on a bronze grain receptacle of the Eastern Zhou dynasty, of oblong form, moulded in low relief with bands of archaic motifs, flanked by a pair of elephant-head loop handles, the cover with a more vivid blue glaze moulded with an archaistic chilong amid clouds, with four butterfly wing-shaped finials which act as supports when upturned, relief moulded zhuanshu script seal marks to the underside of the vessel and the cover ‘Da Qing Qianlong Nianzhi’, 28.5cm wide, one finial broken.

This gui would have been part of an altar set used in state rituals held in the first lunar month of the year, during which the emperor made offerings to heaven at the Altar for Bountiful Harvest (Qigutan), part of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing and would have comprised also a pair of dou, fu and xing-shaped vessels. Similarly composed sets with archaistic designs would have been made in claire de lune, yellow and red glazes for ritual use in the Altars of the Moon, Earth and Sun, respectively. For a related set of the Qianlong period but in clair-de-lune glaze from the Palace Museum, Beijing, see E.S. Rawski and J. Rawson, eds., China: The Three Emperors 1662-1795, London, 2005, pp.125 and 396-397, pls.34-37, where it is noted that the archaistic shape of these sets was not designed until 1748, when the Qianlong emperor ordered the Grand Secretaries to consult classical texts when designing objects, and insisted that he approve their designs before manufacturing could begin. The objects were illustrated and described in The Illustrated Regulations for Ceremonial Paraphernalia of the Qing Dynasty (Huangchao liqi tushi). Compare an identical vessel with cover in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1925, Accession Number: 25.143.1.

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Provenance - found in an attic at a London house clearance and believed to have been stored there for decades.

The cover is a tight fit and the blue glaze is more translucent and brighter than the base of the vessel. One of the butterfly wing finials has been broken and reglued with a substantial section now missing. There is a shallow glaze chip measuring 10 mm wide x 11 mm high to the edge of the base of the vessel. Some ingrained dirt to the surface of the glaze in places, otherwise in good condition.