A FLUTED AND OPAQUE TURQUOISE GLASS BOTTLE VASE, CHINA, EARLY 18TH CENTURY, PROBABLY IMPERIAL GLASS WORKSHOPS BEIJING

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A FLUTED AND OPAQUE TURQUOISE GLASS BOTTLE VASE, CHINA, EARLY 18TH CENTURY, PROBABLY IMPERIAL GLASS WORKSHOPS BEIJING Expert’s note The subtly irregular construction of the present vase is particularly noteworthy. Although conceived as a rigorously symmetrical, octagonally lobed vessel, the individual facets and contours vary slightly in width and alignment, lending the vase a distinctly hand-worked character. This contrasts markedly with the increasingly standardized and technically precise execution encountered in many later Qing glass vessels of comparable form. Such irregularities may point to a particularly early date of manufacture, conceivably as early as the late Kangxi or Yongzheng period, when glassmaking at the Qing court was still a relatively young and developing art. The establishment of the Imperial glassworks provides an important historical context for this possibility. In 1695, the Kangxi Emperor summoned the Bavarian Jesuit Kilian Stumpf (1655–1720) to Beijing, and in the following year an Imperial glass workshop was established under his direction. Stumpf, himself experienced in glassmaking, introduced European techniques and trained Chinese craftsmen. Contemporary records indicate that the workshop was already functioning in 1696 and subsequently expanded considerably. These early decades were therefore a formative and experimental period in Qing court glass production, during which European technology was being adapted to distinctly Chinese forms and aesthetic requirements. The present vase may be understood against precisely this background. Its distinctive octagonally fluted form belongs to a small and particularly refined group of Qing glass vessels, a number of which bear Imperial reign marks and are attributable to the Beijing Palace Workshops. While the absence of a reign mark precludes a definitive Imperial attribution, the combination of the sophisticated form, refined glass color, and conspicuously individual, slightly irregular execution is consistent with an early stage of Qing glass production. It raises the intriguing possibility that the vase was produced during the formative decades of the Imperial glassworks, perhaps in the late Kangxi or Yongzheng period, before such forms achieved the remarkable regularity characteristic of later 18th- and 19th-century production. The vase is supported on a straight foot of octagonal shape that rises to a pear-form body and slender fluted neck, all of conforming shape. The glass is of a deep aquamarine tone with lighter and darker cloudy shading. Dimensions: Height 13.7 cm Literature comparison: Compare a closely related blue glass vase, dated approx. 1700-1800, 14.6 cm tall, in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, object number B85M5.2. Auction result comparison: Type: Closely related Auction: Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 May 2014, lot 3493 Price: HKD 375,000 or approx. EUR 53,500 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing Expert remark: Compare the closely related form, color of the glass, and size (14 cm). Note the Qianlong mark. Auction result comparison: Type: Closely related Auction: Christie’s New York, 19 March 2021, lot 900 Price: USD 27,500 or approx. EUR 28,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing Expert remark: Compare the closely related octagonally faceted form, similarly rising from a conforming foot to a tall neck, as well as the closely related aquamarine color of the glass. Note the near-identical size (13.3 cm). Auction result comparison: Type: Closely related Auction: Christie’s London, 13 May 2014, lot 261 Price: GBP 10,000 or approx. EUR 17,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing Expert remark: Compare the closely related form, size (15 cm), and unmarked base. Note the color.

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