Beschreibung:

A MAGNIFICENT AND IMPORTANT YANGCAI PAINTED 'IMPERIAL POEMS AND LANDSCAPES' INCISED CELADON-GROUND LOBED OVAL VASEQianlong seal mark and of the period Exquisitely potted of lobed pear shape rising from a spreading foot moulded with key-fret band and upright lappets, the celadon-glazed body incised with ruyi-head clouds around four lobed panels enclosing famille rose mountainous landscape scenes with various trees and pavilions, and poetic inscriptions, all beneath a pendent ruyi-head band and upright lappets on the flaring neck flanked by a pair of gilt elephant-head handles. 35.5cm (14in) high.Footnotes清乾隆 御製詩洋彩冬青地四團山水象耳海棠罇 青花「大清乾隆年製」六字篆書款 Provenance: An European private collection 來源：歐洲私人收藏 It is rare to find a famille rose and celadon-glazed vase of this shape and design. The present lot is particularly striking in its lustrous glaze, exquisitely painted panels and combination of carved and moulded decorative motifs. The present lot displays the very high level of quality achieved by craftsmen working at the Imperial kilns at Jingdezhen during the reign of the Qianlong emperor. Tang Ying, the famed superintendent at Jingdezhen during the Yongzheng and Qianlong reigns, strove for technical and artistic perfection, and wares made under his supervision are renowned for their stylistic variety and exceptional quality. The sophistication and deliberate employment in the Yongzheng and early Qianlong periods of carefully varied types of celadon glaze to achieve quite different aesthetic results appear to reflect the emperor's particular interest in this glaze colour. The specific celadon glaze used for vases of this type is a bright sea-green, which Chinese connoisseurs designate as douqing, which achieves a distinct contrast between the ground and relief designs. The paintings in the four medallions depict four landscapes, each associated with one of the four seasons and with a short poem by the Qianlong emperor; they read: 兩行煙柳春光媚，幾頃澄波綠意深 Beautiful Spring light caught between the two banks of misty willows, several ripples of deep green. 「乾隆」、「宸翰」方印 平池鋪玉鏡，晴雪晃金錢 Jade mirrors laid down on the flat pond, gold coins swayed by clear snow. 「乾隆宸翰」、「惟精惟一」方印 顫雨蘆梢纔卧起，笑風蓮蕚乍開齊 The trembling rain and bending reed tips, together with the laughing wind and lotus blossoms bloom all at once. 「乾隆」、「宸翰」方印 半夜飄金籟，千林翦絳霞 In the middle of the night the sound of golden pipes float, the thousand tree scrape at the deep red clouds 「乾隆宸翰」、「惟精惟一」方印 The four poems are all included in the Leshan tang quanji (The Complete Works of Leshan Hall), the collected poems of the Qianlong Emperor. The last poem, however, was deleted from the later edition of the collection in the 23rd year of the Qianlong Emperor's reign. Therefore, the poems on this vase must have been based on the 40-volume 'Complete Works of Leshan Hall' published in the Hall of Martial Valour in the second year of Qianlong's reign (1737). Leshan Hall was the reading room of the Qianlong Emperor when he was a prince. In the Autumn of the 8th year of Yongzheng, the prince compiled his writings including essays, prefaces and poems etc, into fourteen volumes. By the time he became Emperor Qianlong however, his writings grew to fill 40 volumes. In the 23rd year of his reign, however, Qianlong felt that many of the writings were unsatisfactory and deleted much of his work, so that the 'Complete Works of Leshan Hall' were slimmed down to 30 volumes. According to the Qing archives: 'On the 11th day of the 8th month, the 7th year of Qianlong, the order was issued... The Imperial poems and paintings for decorating a jar are very good. Tang Ying should not only manufacture this on jars, but also other vases with similar designs of landscape, flowers and Imperial poems.' See Qing gong neiwufu zaobanchu dang'an zonghui [The Collection of Archives of the Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Qing Palace], Beijing, 2005, vol.11, p.74. This record is the earliest evidence that Emperor Qianlong ordered