QIANLONG RELIEF-CARVED SEAL MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)

This rare vessel was made in imitation of gilt-splashed and gold and silver-inlaid bronze censers, and is representative of the taste of the Yongzheng and Qianlong Emperors for porcelains made to simulate other materials. A very similar tripod bowl in the Wang Xing Lou Collection is illustrated in Imperial Perfection: The Palace Porcelain of Three Chinese Emperors, Hong Kong, 2004, pp. 112-15, no. 40, where the use of tripod bowls of this type is discussed. They were variously used as censers, bulb bowls, flowerpot stands, and brush washers. Another almost identical example, previously in the W. Martin Hurst and W.W. Winkworth Collections, was sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 17 May 1988, lot 89.
A smaller imitation gold-splashed bronze tripod bowl of similar shape, which also has ram's head supports, is illustrated by J. Ayers in Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, vol. 2, Geneva, 1999, pl. 254. A larger bowl with gold decoration on a teadust ground, also with lotus-petal decoration, in the Imperial Collection and now in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is included in Illustrated catalogue of Ch'ing Dynasty Porcelain, Ch'ien-lung Ware and Other Wares, Tokyo, 1981, pl. 78.