A rare famille-rose fluted 'flower balls' and 'birds and flowers' vase, Qing dynasty, Guangxu period, 1901-1905

The present vase is inscribed with a commemorative colophon which translates to: 'Gifted to the United States Consul General Goodnow, from the Circuit-intendent of Shanghai Yuan Shuxun'. Yuan Shuxun (1847-1915) was a Qing dynasty civil official who served as Circuit-intendent at Shanghai from 1901 to probably 1906, and was later appointed to the position of Viceroy of Liangguang in 1909-1910, the same prestigious post previously held by Li Hongzhang in 1900. John Goodnow (1858-1907), was an American diplomat who served as the United States Consul-General in Shanghai between 1897-1905 after then-President William McKinley's nomination to the post in 1897. Therefore, in order for the present vase to bear this particular inscription, the vase must have been commissioned and made between 1901, after Yuan's appointment to the Circuit-intendent of Shanghai, and 1905, before the end of Goodnow's service as a foreign diplomat.

An almost identical vase is illustrated in H.A. van Oort, Chinese Porcelain of the 19th and 20th centuries, Lochem, 1977, pls. 90 and 91. That example was inscribed with a similar colophon, but was instead dedicated to the Consul General of the German Empire at the time. Van Oort identifies the recipient to be Clemens Freiherr von Ketteler (1853-1900), who was the ambassador of the German Empire to China between 1899 until his death in 1900 when he was executed during the Boxer Rebellion in the streets of Beijing. Thus, van Oort suggests that the present type of vases were first made, then gifted to von Ketteler in the late 1890s and in the early months of 1900. However, Yuan's appointment to the Circuit-intendent of Shanghai did not occur until 1901, therefore it is very unlikely that Clemens Freiherr von Ketteler was the actual recipient of the vase, and instead Wilhelm Knappe (1855-1910), the Consul-General of the German Empire in Shanghai between 1899-1906, would most likely have been the intended recipient of the vase.