Guangxu yellow ground Yuhuchunping vase, Qianlong style

About this piece

This pear-shaped Yuhuchunping vase — the classic form with its slender waisted neck, flared mouth, and short foot — is enamelled in famille rose colours against a yellow ground, with sgraffito work incised through the enamel to add texture beneath the painted florals. The decoration draws on a wide vocabulary of flowers: lotus, peach blossom, rose, morning glory, pomegranate, and a good half-dozen others besides, all scrolling across the body on tendrils worked into the yellow background. A blue floral band runs around the shoulder, a lotus petal border finishes the foot, and the neck carries the same yellow-ground floral scheme up to a red foliate border and gilt rim.

The base bears an iron-red four-character Qianlong seal mark, a convention common on later Chinese porcelain paying tribute to an earlier reign's aesthetic rather than claiming to be from it — this piece dates to the Guangxu period, and is understood as a faithful reproduction of an early eighteenth-century imperial original, one that sold at Christie's for £338,500. That's a considerable ancestor to live up to, and the vase does it justice: the density of pattern and the confidence of the yellow ground are exactly what made the original worth that much in the first place.

Condition notes

Excellent antique condition. Small dark mark.