IMPORTANT ET RARE VASE COUVERT EN JADE BLANC XIXe... Lot 46

IMPORTANT ET RARE VASE COUVERT EN JADE BLANC XIXe siècle A SUPERB AND RARE WHITE JADE VASE AND COVER WITH AN ARABIC INSCRIPTION 19th century Of baluster form raised on a short splayed foot and tapering to a cylindrical neck set with a pair of stylised archaistic dragon handles, finely carved around the exterior with a large taotie mask on each side, above a band of lotus lappets around the base and below a band of stylised archaistic dragons around the shoulder, the sides set with a pair of animal mask handles suspending loose rings, the straight neck carved with a wide band featuring an Arabic inscription reading سلام which may be translated as 'for peace', flanked by a pair of stylised archaistic dragon handles, the domed cover with a finial in the form of lion, the translucent stone of even white tone, silver-inlaid wood stand. 12.5cm (4 7/8in) high. (3). Footnotes: THE PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED EUROPEAN FAMILY 歐洲顯赫家族藏品 十九世紀 白玉刻阿拉伯文雕饕餮紋象耳活環獅鈕蓋瓶 Provenance: Acquired by the parents of the present owners, and thence by descent 來源: 現任藏家父母獲得，並由後人保存迄今 The body of this superb vase is carved from a single piece of white jade, the cover made of a stone of the same fine quality. The brilliant white colour, flawless stone and exceptional translucency all represent qualities that were highly sought after at the Qing court. The vase is highly unusual in its shape and also in its decoration. The bulbous body has sloping shoulders with rounded edges and is surmounted by a cylindrical neck wider at the top than at the bottom. The neck is carved with an Islamic inscription which alludes to the Islamic influence of this vase, as demonstrated by a 15th century jade ewer with an arabic inscription around the neck, from the collection of the Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian, Oeiras, Portugal, published in J.P.Palmer, Jade, London, 1967, pl.38. The very particular form immediately brings to mind the shape of Islamic glass and metal vessels. Compare, for instance, a 12th century Syrian yellowish green glass bottle, published in Stefano Carboni and David Whitehouse, Glass of the Sultans, New York, 2001, p.97,cat.no.23, or a 9th century Egyptian transparent glass and green overlay bottle, op.cit. p. 183, cat.no.89. Glass, metal ware and jades arrived in China from Western Asia and beyond as early as the Sui and Tang periods. It was under the Qianlong emperor that the Islamic and Mughal jades became highly collectible. The magnificent Shah Jehan jade cup in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, (accession number IS.12-1962) is an example of a Western Asian jade object that was directly copied by the artists working in the imperial jade workshops under the Qianlong emperor, as an example in the National Palace Museum collection in Taipei illustrates, see Teng Shu-p'ing, Exquisite Beauty: Islamic Jades, Taipei, 2007, cat.no.266. This particular vessel demonstrates how the artists working in the Palace Museum workshops were skilled at adopting foreign shapes and design and adapting and interpreting them to suit contemporary taste. While there seems to be no direct Chinese prototype for the shape of this vase, the carved design around the main body is purely Chinese, and inspired by the classical decoration found on archaic bronzes. The Qianlong emperor was fascinated by antiquity and archaic bronzes. An avid collector, he published his extensive collection of 1500 ancient bronze vessels and utensils in an illustrated catalogue under the titel Catalogue of Xiqing Antiquities (Xiqing gujian. Many jade vessels made for the Qianlong emperor in the workshops within the Zaobanshu, the Imperial Palace Workshop, drew inspiration from the archaic bronzes, their shapes and designs, illustrated in the Xiqing gujian, including the present white jade vase. The quality of the execution of the taotie masks on this vase is sublime and reflects the high technical standards of these workshops which produced jade wares for imperial court, compare a white jade altar set, similarly decorated with taotie masks in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, published in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Jadeware (III), Hong Kong, 1995, pp. 136 and 137, cat.no.113. Hence this wonderful small vase and cover shows the impressive skills and imagination of the Qing craftsmen who used a flawless white jade and merged a rare shape with an archaistic design to create a visually compelling and possibly unique work of art with jewel-like qualities. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com