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Lot Essay
The present vase takes one of the most auspicious forms in the repertoire of Qianlong imperial porcelains. Its shape, conceived as three conjoined double gourds (hulu 葫蘆), a motif, exhibits a visual appeal that is matched by its layered auspicious and philosophical meanings. The gourd has long lent itself to the Chinese decorative arts and appears as a vessel form across media and centuries, from the Neolithic period to the present day.
In the later imperial symbolic iconographies of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the bottle gourd functioned as a privileged sign of fecundity and continuity. By virtue of its numerous seeds, it became a natural emblem of fertility, encapsulated in the phrase “bottle gourd, a hundred sons” (hulu baizi 葫蘆百子). The plant’s tendency to bear both large gourds (gua 瓜) and smaller offshoots (die 瓞) generated the auspicious idiom guadie mianmian (瓜瓞綿綿), closely aligned with zisun wandai (子孫萬代), both expressing the wish for ceaseless generations of descendants. The gourd’s symbolism also rests on its practical. When hollowed, it becomes a container for food, liquor, or medicine; it thus signifies abundance, good fortune, and protection. It is also associated with healing and appears as an emblem for physicians and herbal pharmacies. At a more philosophical register, the gourd may be understood as useful precisely when emptied—an analogy for the cultivation of inner clarity, in which the self becomes effective only when cleared of delusion and desire.
Within Daoist imagery, the gourd is further elevated as an auspicious implement associated with immortals. Li Tieguai, one of the Eight Immortals, is conventionally shown with a gourd that contains medicinal elixirs used to heal the sick; a related visualization may be seen, for example, in a Ming-dynasty bronze figure made by Su Wennan (dated to the 1500s) in the Cleveland Museum of Art, suspending a bottle gourd from his belt, and illustrated in Arts of China: From the Cleveland Museum of Art, Mansfield, 1983, cat. no. 53. Chinese folklore also recounts gourds uncorked at moments of crisis—either to draw adversaries into the vessel or to release potent forces—reflecting a belief that the gourd could absorb noxious vapors and counteract threatening influences. In this capacity it became linked to the Duanwu festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, traditionally regarded as the most dangerous and ominous day of the year.
Because of its intimate associations with Daoist culture and its inherently auspicious meanings, the gourd enjoyed exceptional popularity in the Ming dynasty among both the court and the wider public. Under the Jiajing emperor—who actively embraced Daoist practices and pursued longevity—the gourd’s multifaceted symbolism proved especially resonant: its many seeds signified abundant offspring and blessings, while its homophonic association with “blessings and emolument” suggested fortune, long life, and auspiciousness. Against the poignant backdrop of the Jiajing emperor’s repeated loss of heirs, the court is understood to have encouraged the production of gourd-form vessels as talismans, a fashion that continued into the Qing dynasty. In the Qianlong period, the gourd-form vase reached a particular pinnacle, as the imperial kilns expanded both shapes and techniques to a level of variety and refinement that is striking even within the exuberant landscape of eighteenth-century court production—spanning underglaze blue, famille rose, and diverse monochrome glazes.
The present vase is extraordinary not only for its iconographic decorative scheme but also for its technical ambition. The triple-conjoined configuration would have posed substantial challenges in throwing, joining, and firing, as the multiple lobes demanded precise control of shrinkage and structural stability. The selection of the number three also invites interpretation beyond mere ornament. In Chapter 42 of Daode jing (The Classic of the Way and Virtue), the philosopher Laozi writes: “The Dao gives birth to One; One gives birth to Two; Two gives birth to Three; Three gives birth to the ten thousand things.” In related traditions, “three” may also signify harmonious totality—evoking the Three Powers of Heaven, Earth, and Human, or other triadic structures that imagine the world as a balanced unity.
The enameling on the present vase is equally sophisticated. The gourds are rendered with subtle tonal modulation—moving through pale green and warm yellow, and punctuated with mottled brownish speckling—to suggest the natural gradations of ripening fruit. Such controlled transitions exemplify the painterly aspirations of Qing court enameling. The design is further heightened by the use of finely articulated outlines, which sharpen the motifs and enhance their relief-like presence against the turquoise ground. This emphasis on crisp contouring creates a visual effect reminiscent of cloisonné enamels, inviting comparison with related cloisonné enamel gourd-form vessels, including an example in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated by Lu-wen Hu in The Mystery of the Jingtai Cloisonné Unveiled , Taipei, 2022.
Triple-conjoined double-gourd vases are more frequently seen in monochrome-glazed wares, where form rather than decoration carries the primary aesthetic and symbolic charge. For comparison, see one smaller Qianlong celadon-glazed example (20 cm. high) in the National Palace Museum, Taipei (Fig. 1), as well as an eighteenth-century “robin’s egg”-glazed gourd vase in the same collection, published by Chen Yuxiu in Enchanting Splendors of Vases and Planters: A Special Exhibition of Flower Vessels from the Porcelain, Taipei, 2014, pp. 140-1, no. II-05.
By contrast, the present vase marries an unusually complex construction to an elaborate and well-designed decorative scheme, suggesting a rarified refinement of production. Archival sources may point toward an imperial setting for such vases, as the Qing Imperial Porcelain Archives records note that in the forty-fifth year of Qianlong (1780), the palace attendant E’erdenbu presented to the Ningshou Palace a pair of “jade-green ground” (feicui di) “fu-and-shou hulu gourd” vases (Fig. 2). While the entry does not specify form in sufficient detail to secure an identification, it is tempting to consider whether it refers to a work closely related in conception to the present example. In any case, given the technical difficulty of construction and enameling, it is not surprising that only a handful of closely comparable triple-conjoined double-gourd vases are recorded, and that all documented surviving examples appear to be preserved in institutional collections. Three closely related vases are documented: one in the Shandong Museum; a second in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong: Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, 1989, p. 360, no. 41 ; and a third from the Yokogawa Tamisuke Collection, illustrated in the Tokyo National Museum Masterpieces of Chinese Ceramics from the Yakogawa Tamisuke Collection, p. 120, no. 97.
In the later imperial symbolic iconographies of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the bottle gourd functioned as a privileged sign of fecundity and continuity. By virtue of its numerous seeds, it became a natural emblem of fertility, encapsulated in the phrase “bottle gourd, a hundred sons” (hulu baizi 葫蘆百子). The plant’s tendency to bear both large gourds (gua 瓜) and smaller offshoots (die 瓞) generated the auspicious idiom guadie mianmian (瓜瓞綿綿), closely aligned with zisun wandai (子孫萬代), both expressing the wish for ceaseless generations of descendants. The gourd’s symbolism also rests on its practical. When hollowed, it becomes a container for food, liquor, or medicine; it thus signifies abundance, good fortune, and protection. It is also associated with healing and appears as an emblem for physicians and herbal pharmacies. At a more philosophical register, the gourd may be understood as useful precisely when emptied—an analogy for the cultivation of inner clarity, in which the self becomes effective only when cleared of delusion and desire.
Within Daoist imagery, the gourd is further elevated as an auspicious implement associated with immortals. Li Tieguai, one of the Eight Immortals, is conventionally shown with a gourd that contains medicinal elixirs used to heal the sick; a related visualization may be seen, for example, in a Ming-dynasty bronze figure made by Su Wennan (dated to the 1500s) in the Cleveland Museum of Art, suspending a bottle gourd from his belt, and illustrated in Arts of China: From the Cleveland Museum of Art, Mansfield, 1983, cat. no. 53. Chinese folklore also recounts gourds uncorked at moments of crisis—either to draw adversaries into the vessel or to release potent forces—reflecting a belief that the gourd could absorb noxious vapors and counteract threatening influences. In this capacity it became linked to the Duanwu festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, traditionally regarded as the most dangerous and ominous day of the year.
Because of its intimate associations with Daoist culture and its inherently auspicious meanings, the gourd enjoyed exceptional popularity in the Ming dynasty among both the court and the wider public. Under the Jiajing emperor—who actively embraced Daoist practices and pursued longevity—the gourd’s multifaceted symbolism proved especially resonant: its many seeds signified abundant offspring and blessings, while its homophonic association with “blessings and emolument” suggested fortune, long life, and auspiciousness. Against the poignant backdrop of the Jiajing emperor’s repeated loss of heirs, the court is understood to have encouraged the production of gourd-form vessels as talismans, a fashion that continued into the Qing dynasty. In the Qianlong period, the gourd-form vase reached a particular pinnacle, as the imperial kilns expanded both shapes and techniques to a level of variety and refinement that is striking even within the exuberant landscape of eighteenth-century court production—spanning underglaze blue, famille rose, and diverse monochrome glazes.
The present vase is extraordinary not only for its iconographic decorative scheme but also for its technical ambition. The triple-conjoined configuration would have posed substantial challenges in throwing, joining, and firing, as the multiple lobes demanded precise control of shrinkage and structural stability. The selection of the number three also invites interpretation beyond mere ornament. In Chapter 42 of Daode jing (The Classic of the Way and Virtue), the philosopher Laozi writes: “The Dao gives birth to One; One gives birth to Two; Two gives birth to Three; Three gives birth to the ten thousand things.” In related traditions, “three” may also signify harmonious totality—evoking the Three Powers of Heaven, Earth, and Human, or other triadic structures that imagine the world as a balanced unity.
The enameling on the present vase is equally sophisticated. The gourds are rendered with subtle tonal modulation—moving through pale green and warm yellow, and punctuated with mottled brownish speckling—to suggest the natural gradations of ripening fruit. Such controlled transitions exemplify the painterly aspirations of Qing court enameling. The design is further heightened by the use of finely articulated outlines, which sharpen the motifs and enhance their relief-like presence against the turquoise ground. This emphasis on crisp contouring creates a visual effect reminiscent of cloisonné enamels, inviting comparison with related cloisonné enamel gourd-form vessels, including an example in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated by Lu-wen Hu in The Mystery of the Jingtai Cloisonné Unveiled , Taipei, 2022.
Triple-conjoined double-gourd vases are more frequently seen in monochrome-glazed wares, where form rather than decoration carries the primary aesthetic and symbolic charge. For comparison, see one smaller Qianlong celadon-glazed example (20 cm. high) in the National Palace Museum, Taipei (Fig. 1), as well as an eighteenth-century “robin’s egg”-glazed gourd vase in the same collection, published by Chen Yuxiu in Enchanting Splendors of Vases and Planters: A Special Exhibition of Flower Vessels from the Porcelain, Taipei, 2014, pp. 140-1, no. II-05.
By contrast, the present vase marries an unusually complex construction to an elaborate and well-designed decorative scheme, suggesting a rarified refinement of production. Archival sources may point toward an imperial setting for such vases, as the Qing Imperial Porcelain Archives records note that in the forty-fifth year of Qianlong (1780), the palace attendant E’erdenbu presented to the Ningshou Palace a pair of “jade-green ground” (feicui di) “fu-and-shou hulu gourd” vases (Fig. 2). While the entry does not specify form in sufficient detail to secure an identification, it is tempting to consider whether it refers to a work closely related in conception to the present example. In any case, given the technical difficulty of construction and enameling, it is not surprising that only a handful of closely comparable triple-conjoined double-gourd vases are recorded, and that all documented surviving examples appear to be preserved in institutional collections. Three closely related vases are documented: one in the Shandong Museum; a second in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong: Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, 1989, p. 360, no. 41 ; and a third from the Yokogawa Tamisuke Collection, illustrated in the Tokyo National Museum Masterpieces of Chinese Ceramics from the Yakogawa Tamisuke Collection, p. 120, no. 97.