A RARE TURQUOISE-GROUND FAMILLE-ROSE 'HUI MOUNTAIN RETREAT' TEAPOT AND COVER SEAL MARK AND PERIOD OF QIANLONG

the finely potted globular body on one side with a short angled upright spout, opposed by an elegant ear-shaped loop handle, brightly painted to the exterior with a gilt-bordered rectangular panel enclosing a garden scene of a scholar seated at a low stone table admiring a scroll, an aged pine and rocky outcrop concealing part of a pavilion in the background, with an attendant serving tea while another brews it on a stove set amid rocks in the foreground, a bridge leading over a canal to a walled garden on one side, the reverse with a similarly shaped panel framing an imperial poem by the Qianlong Emperor, Jihuiquan peng zhulu ge (Brewing Tea by Hui Spring), followed by two seals reading Qian and Long, all against a pale turquoise ground with a dense pencilled pattern of curled feathery leaves, with swooping and ascending bats grasping beribboned wan symbols amid leafy foliate scrolls, the stepped cover similarly decorated around a slightly raised yellow-ground floral disc supporting a spherical knop painted with finely shaded lotus flower on a gilt ground, the interior and base enamelled in turquoise, inscribed with a six-character seal mark in underglaze blue reserved in a white square
17.4 cm, 6 7/8 in.

Provenance:
An old Scottish private collection, since the 19th century.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 27th October 1992, lot 156.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 2nd May 2000, lot 646.