Large Meiping Vase

[Stan]

Hi Peter, this vase is 53.3 cm tall and 35.5 at its widest point, this is nicely detailed with gold with iron red dragons and clouds, bats on a yellow ground, this has rust spots and some pitting, on the bottom there is a lot of small pitting on the whole bottom, the Yongzheng mark is hand drawn and the rest of the decoration, please let me know what you think, thanks.

[Stan]

Here are some more photo's to view.

[Stan]

More photo's.

[Stan]

Here are the last set of photo's to view, thanks again.

[peterp]

If all were of the period it would have to be imperial porcelain, but I'm afraid it is not. There are two or three features that point to late Qing as the earliest time of manufacture.
First to the bottom. I do not think this could be minyao porcelain with this mark. This is an imperial mark, but probably apocryphal. Copies would more likely use Kaiti characters instead of a seal mark, which were more common and also used on imperial porcelain. The foot rim looks more like a late Qing foot rim. The color used for the bottom and interior should be a very light greenish blue. (Lighter than in these pictures, but I know how difficult it is to get the color right for this.) But that is not the point...as far as I know this sort of green blue bottom/interior glaze was only used from the Qianlong reign onwards.
The dragon scales shown below the head show a criss cross pattern, whereas the scales are dots added to the lines. I think this method of painting scales points to late Qing (or later) too. There seem to be age or usage traces, which make it look as if it has some age, though. Difficult to date, but unlikely imperial or Yongzheng, in my view. Did you have someone look at this already?

[Stan]

Thanks Peter, I just won this at a local auction, this came from an estate that had some very nice Antique Chinese Porcelain, I was surprised that I won because some of it sold in the thousands, I was thinking the same think, late Qing or later, it sure looks like it could have been minyao but I like this vase and it is going into my personal collection, thanks Peter for your help.