A fine and rare 'eel-skin'-glazed vase, Seal mark and period of Qianlong

Japanese Private Collection.

Christie's Hong Kong, 27th May 2008, lot 1591. 

First developed under the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor in an attempt to mimic the patina of archaic bronzes, the unctuous 'eel skin' glaze of the present lot is widely considered the most prized of the so-called 'teadust' glazes produced at the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen. Much like the praised celadon wares of the Song dynasty, these spellbinding mottled glazes were produced using a high concentration of iron oxide in the glaze recipe, a weak-reduction firing atmosphere and a slow cooling process.

Vases of this magnificent archaic form are exceedingly rare and found almost exclusively in a very small number of important Japanese collections. Compare two teadust vases of a darker kurasoba ('black soba noodle') color: one in the collection of the Idemitsu Museum, illustrated in Chūgoku tōji: Idemitsu Bijutsukan zōhin zuroku / Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, pl. 229; the other from the Sokenan Collection, exhibited at the Kyoto National Museum, Shinkan kansei kinen tokubetsuten / Special Exhibition in Memory of the New Building, Kyoto, 1967, cat. no. 311, and later sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 1st December 2009, lot 1904. Compare also the only known vase of this type with a sky-blue glaze from the Hirota Collection, now held in the Tokyo National Museum, illustrated alongside the Idemitsu piece in Chūgoku tōji: Idemitsu Bijutsukan zōhin zuroku [Chinese Ceramics: Qing Imperial Wares], Tokyo, 1996, pl. 79.

Two vases of this form and teadust glazing have been sold in our Hong Kong rooms: the first on 21st May 1979, lot 131; the second, of a very similar 'eel skin' tone, was sold twice: on 31st October 2004, lot 219, and again 9th October 2020, lot 54. 

A slightly more common group of teadust-glazed Qianlong vases is known, of a similarly grand archaic form but with bronze-imitation animal head handles and three molded bands across the body; compare a particularly fine example sold in our London rooms, 13th May 2009, lot 221. These and the present vase were likely both inspired by a slightly smaller prototype of Yongzheng mark. An example of this type –itself likely derived from archaic bronze vessels of lei shape from the Western Zhou dynasty – is preserved in the Palace Museum, Taipei and illustrated in Liu Liang-yu, A Survey of Chinese Ceramics: Ch'ing Official and Popular Wares, Taipei, 1991, p. 137.