TO BID ON THIS LOT A DEPOSIT OF €20.000 IS REQUESTED FROM PROSPECTIVE BUYERS.
CONTACT US TO REGISTER AND ARRANGE YOUR DEPOSIT.

H.: 48 cm

Provenance:
- An important Belgian private collection.
- Acquired from Christie's, London, May 13, 2008, lot 215.

Ref.: 
- Sotheby's, Hong Kong, April 08, 2011, lot 3123, for a closely comparable example with a Qianlong mark. (sold HKD 17.460.000) (link)

This blue and white baoyueping or bianhu (moonflask) decorated with the Eight Buddhist Emblems, is a masterpiece of Qing imperial porcelain. The Qing emperors maintained close ties with Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism, with the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors themselves engaging in religious practice; the lotus-trellised Eight Emblems on the body of this flask stand as a vivid testament to this devotion. The form derives from early Ming prototypes of the Yongle and Xuande reigns, refined and reinterpreted during the Yongzheng period. Fewer than twenty comparable examples are known on the market, the great majority bearing Qianlong marks, while Yongzheng-marked pieces are of the utmost rarity. According to Qing court archives, a pair of Yongzheng blue and white Eight Emblems moonflasks was once preserved in the Yonghe Palace.