A Chinese Export Porcelain Iron Red Decorated 'Swirl' Bottle Vase, Kangxi Period
清康熙 外銷礬紅彩旋紋賞瓶

Kangxi Period (1622-1722)

The elegant pear-shaped bottle vase has a bulbous body and slightly flared gilt-edged mouths. A bulge at the neck is decorated with four stylized gilded chrysanthemums -similar to a Japanese kiku emblem. Apart from the white neck ring, the vase is entirely decorated with spiralling stripes in a light iron-red colour edged by darker red lines.

This decoration is possibly influenced by 17th-century Venetian latticino glassware, where opaque white enamel threads were applied to colorless glass vessels in a spiraling movement. The technique was well known in the Netherlands, brought over by immigrant craftsmen.

Similar vases are in the porcelain collection of Augustus the Strong (Dresden) and included in the 1721 inventory-confirming the Kangxi dating. Other examples can be found in the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Height 13 in., 33 cm.

This lot is located in Chicago.