20. A yellow overlay turquoise glass bottle vase

The bottle has a compressed globular body and high cylindrical neck and is carved through a thick layer of lemon-yellow overlay to the turquoise ground beneath. The body is boldly carved with some incised detailing with a scene of a warrior kneeling among rocks while a second figure approaches on horseback. The neck is carved with a deer and a crane beneath pine branches, with the moon in a cloud above. The footrim is of characteristic neatly finished square section.

Provenance:
Collection of Geronimo Berenguer de los Reyes, Jr.
PC Lu and Sons Ltd
Christie’s New York, 19th September 1996, lot 370
Christie’s Hong Kong, 26th November 2014, lot 3371

For another vase carved in the same rare combination of colours, but bearing an engraved mark of Qianlong (1736-1795), see Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 7th October 2015, lot 3742; and for another, see Galerie Zacke, 5th March 2021, with an incised mark of Tongzhi (1861-1875). While the mark on the former vase is not certain to be of the period, the one on the second, being less ambitious, is more believable and provides a reasonable terminus ante quem for the present vase. The strong form of the present vase, typical of many eighteenth century examples, and the finely finished foot, suggest a date some decades, at least, earlier than the Tongzhi example. 

藍地套黃料人物圖長經瓶

Dimensions: Height: 23 cm, 9⅛ inches

Date: Qing dynasty (1644-1911), 18th or 19th century