Guan type craquele celadon vase

[Teunis van Eijk]

Hello,

I need some expert advise on this vase.

It is a hexagonal craquele vase.
Before I bought it I looked at it with a magnifying glass and in my opinion the craquele looked old.
There are many inclusions in the glaze and the patern of the craquele is very irregular.

Can you put a date on this vase?

Thanks for your help in advance
Best regards,
Teunis

[peterp]

These items are always a bit difficult to date. As there is no decoration, you have only the body and glaze for evaluating age.
I would need a hands-on inspection to decide how old it could be.
Body:
It looks very heavy. But, Is it heavy?
How about the foot rim, is it very dense or porous?
Glaze:
It looks a bit different in the upper part (lower two pictures). Normally, with crackle vases you would have the base color, and there are crackles with one or two different colors. Here, at the neck, it looks as if there is some bluish (celadon) glaze is covering both the base color and crackles. While this is not impossible, it is very unusual. If you use a needle, can you feel the crackles where they are faint?

From the shape of the foot rim I would expect this to be late Qing dynasty at the most.Earlier in the Qing dynasty it would probably have a narrow rim. On the other hand, if this were a more ancient item, I would expect a different type of density/clay color. But, as I mentioned above, I would need a hands-on; weight, density of foot rim, etc. would require a tactile inspection.

[Teunis van Eijk]

Hello Peter,

Yes it is very heavy compared to other porcelain wares.
The footrim is dense and very hard.
The glaze is not uniform at all. It differs from place to place.
With a needle you can't feel the crackles. The glaze is shining if you hold the vase at an angle and is uniform all over the vase.
So Guangxu or Xuantong likely.

What about the position of the ears. On many vases I have seen them straith pointing down and on this one they are at an angle.

Best regards,
Teunis

[Stan]

How big is the vase, if it is big and heavy you would expect wear on the bottom foot, I can't really tell from the picture if there is wear.

[Teunis van Eijk]

She is 30 cm high.

There is some wear but because the porcelain is very dense it caused a few pits where small peaces broke of with sharp edges.

[peterp]

If you can't feel the crackles, then it is likely that it was overglazed again later. Possible but unusual for earlier pieces. The original vases would have needed the ears straight up, but here it is a decoration. With many they are not vertical but follow the shape of the neck.