An imperial cloisonné 'taotie' vase with decoration in archaic style

Description:

China, engraved four-character mark Qianlong with fifth character xiao and of the period
H. 11,3 cm
From an old Berlin private collection, collected before 2007
In response to the Qianlong Emperor's call for inspiration from antiquity, the decorative designs on various artefacts (including cloisonnéenamel) imitated ancient bronze forms and patterns. This can be seen in the present vase with brightly enamelled archaic Taotie masks. Similar examples of archaic motifs on cloisonné vessels of the Qianlong period can be found in 'The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Metal-bodied Enamel Ware', Hong Kong, 2002, figs. 94 and 115. Occasionally an additional incised mark is found below the four-character mark of the Qianlong period, as in the present lot "xiao". The additional characters may be a single number between one and five, a fortune-telling invitation or an obvious instruction to distinguish use and category. However, some scholars suggest that it may be a way of numbering the large number of items in the correct order. See H. Brinker and A. Lutz, Chinese Cloisonné: The Pierre Uldry Collection, New York, 1989, pp. 74-79.
Für a related cloisonné enamel vase, Qianlong mark and period, see B. Quette, Cloisonné: Chinese Enamels from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties, New York, 2011, p. 291. Due to its size and bottle shape, this vase was most likely intended for the storage of small books, as was a Cloisonnéenamelled bottle vase of this type from the Clague Collection, which Bèatrice Quette published in Cloisonné: Chinese Enamels from the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, Bard Graduate Centre, New York, 2011, p. 291, no. 130. Like the present bottle, the Clague bottle also has an additional mark, duan, below the reign mark. On pages 72-75 the author discusses the small cloisonnévases, räcensers ße and instruments (luping sanshi) that were made for burning incense, and notes that a particular group of these pieces, which were used for burning incense, are known to have been used in the clague;made for the Qianlong court had an additional mark below the lord's mark and "exhibit particularly elegant craftsmanship." - Minim. Traces of age, good condition