KANGXI SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD (1662-1722)

Clair-de-lune-glazed wares were highly prized in the Qing dynasty and the color was strictly reserved for imperial porcelain. The glaze was first developed in the Xuande (1426-1435) period, as evidenced by the excavated Xuande-marked stem bowl illustrated by S. Liang, Yuan’s and Ming’s Imperial Porcelains Unearthed from Jingdezhen, Beijing, 1999, p. 256, no. 257. The glaze did not gain prominence until the Kangxi period, when it was used mostly for scholar’s objects.
A Kangxi marked clair-de-lune-glazed jar of the same rare form and size, formerly in the collection of Ping Y. Tai Foundation, was sold at Christie’s New York, 17 September 2008, lot 248. A Kangxi-marked white-glazed example in the Shanghai Museum is illustrated in Kangxi Porcelain Wares from the Shanghai Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1998, no. 231, and a further Kangxi-marked white-glazed example from the Wang Xing Lou Collection is illustrated in Imperial Perfection: The Palace Porcelain of Three Chinese Emperors, Kangxi - Yongzheng - Qianlong, Hong Kong, 2004, p. 170, no. 61.