A MOLDED CRACKLE-GLAZED TRIPLE-SPOUTED DOUBLE GOURD VASE QING DYNASTY, DAOGUANG PERIOD

vertically divided into three undulating lobes, each rising to a slender columnar neck and covered in a pale bluish-grey crackled glaze, the double gourd cinched at the waist with a molded ribbon painted with a fret diaper ground in underglaze-blue, the trefoil foot ring applied with a dark wash, the recessed base similarly crackle-glazed and with a four-character hallmark in iron red reading Shendetang zhi
Height 12 1/2 in., 31.8 cm

Provenance:
Compare a Daoguang period ge-type lobed and elongated 'pomegranate' vase, with a Shendetang hallmark on the base and the footring similarly applied with a dark wash, in the collection of the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Zhou Lili, Shanghai bowuguan cangpin yanjiu daxi: Qingdai Yongzheng-Xuantong guanyao ciqi / Qing Dynasty Official Wares from the Yongzheng to Xuantong Reigns, Shanghai, 2014, pl. 5-19.

Vases of this form became popular in the Qianlong period and continued to be made throughout the 19th century. See a pair of celadon-glazed famille-rose vases of similar form and with the molded ribbon painted with the same key fret diaper ground, attributed to the 19th century, sold in these rooms 18th March 2014, lot 492. A robin's egg-glazed example with a molded gilt ribbon sold in these rooms, 24th April 1975, lot 396. For a Qianlong seal mark and period crackle guan-type glazed vase of this form, without the ribbon, see one illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. II, London, 1994, pl. 876.