Lot 80 , A Chinese clair-de-lune glazed vase, Qianlong seal mark and possibly of the period (1736-95)

A Chinese clair-de-lune glazed vase, Qianlong seal mark and possibly of the period (1736-95), with ground off rim, compressed globular body, on a slightly spreading foot, underglaze blue seal mark ‘Da Qing Qianlong Nianzhi’ to base, diameter 20cm, height 12.3cm, probably cut down from a bottle vase

Provenance -
This item is one of many Chinese objects collected and owned by the eminent Moule family; who travelled from England to China as missionaries in the mid-1800s, and lived and worked there until the early 1920s. The items were subsequently passed down to their present-day English descendants, the Gurneys. The Ven. Dr Arthur Evans Moule (1836-1918) was a missionary in China for nearly fifty years and was Archdeacon of Mid-China. He was also a poet and wrote several notable books* about China. He and his wife had six sons, one of whom, William Augustus Handley Moule (1870-1946), was the headmaster of the CMS Anglo-Chinese School in Shanghai for 34 years, as well as a first-class sportsman!

* Three of his major books are The Glorious Land (1891), New China and Old (3d ed., 1902), and Half a Century in China (1911).
£200-300

Condition:
The vase possibly started as a bottle vase the neck now completely lacking and the current neck rim ground off to biscuit porcelain. The interior has some heavy scratching and glaze imperfections which would have been hidden by a narrow neck. Some scuffing and scratching to the exterior.

Sold for £180