Porcelain vase with halberd handles and floral pattern painted in fen-ts’ai enamels in a gold ground, Ch’ien-lung reign (1736-1795), Ch’ing dynasty

Porcelain vase with halberd handles and floral pattern painted in fen-ts’ai enamels in a gold ground, Ch’ien-lung reign (1736-1795), Ch’ing dynasty

• Image Number: K1B016917N000000000PAF
• Dynasty: Qing dynasty
• Category: Ceramics
• Function: furnishings
• Material: Minerals/Ceramics/
• Description:
  The bottle has a long neck, a large belly, and a short circle of feet. The side of the neck is decorated with two ears shaped like a halberd. The bottom of the bottle is a six character seal script of the “Made in the reign of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty” in gold color. The whole body is covered with gold color. On the gold color, blue, white, yellow, green, brown, pink and other multicolor glazes are used to depict the patterns of lotus, bat, pisces and pan length. The space is also decorated with clouds, ripples and flowers. The fine and complex patterns on the bottle surface, set off by the golden color, are more resplendent and magnificent. The Song Dynasty’s “Gui Xin Zai Zhi” thought that the pattern would “never come off” if garlic juice was added to the golden color. It can be seen that gold color has been used for a long time. For the Qianlong official kiln, the gold colored wares fired by the kiln not only showed the luster of real gold, but also were decorated with various glaze colors and patterns such as pastels, making a visual effect like brocade weaving flowers.