A CHINESE IMPERIAL PORCELAIN ALTAR VASE

QIANLONG 1736-95

With an ovoid body and cylindrical knopped neck raised on a wide domed foot, finely enamelled in iron-red with lotus sprays above a band of stiff leaves, the neck with a key fret border, 22.2cm.

Provenance: an English private collection, purchased in Sussex in the 1990s.

Cf. A similar altar vase can be seen in a painting by Giuseppe Castiglione in The National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrating the Emperor Qianlong beneath trees and beside a table with a number of other treasures; see Palastmuseum Peking Schätze aus der Verbotenen Stadt, Berlin, 1985, no.41, pl.24. For another example presented to Cheltenham College, England, by Yuan Shikai in 1914, and now in the Weishaupt Collection, see G Avitabile, From The Dragon's Treasure, London, 1987, no.176, p.127. See also P Lam, Qing Imperial Porcelain, Hong Kong, 1995, no.83. Another example can be found in the British Museum, London.