A RARE RU-STYLE PEACH-FORM BRUSH WASHER

Peach-form washers of various designs and sizes, usually covered with pale monochrome glazes, were popular in the eighteenth century: see, for example, a Yongzheng-period washer with a dark body visible through the Guan-type glaze, from the Qing Court Collection, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum – 37 - Monochrome Porcelain, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 229, no. 207; a Qianlong mark-and-period washer with a Ru-type glaze, ibid., p. 239, no. 217; and a Qianlong-period washer with a crackled Ge-type glaze and a mark reading nei fu zhen zang, illustrated ibid. p. 254, pl. 232. Other related washers included the example illustrated in Qing Imperial Monochromes. The Zande Lou Collection, Shanghai, 2005, pp. 94-95, no. 30, and one from the collection of Robert H. Ellsworth, sold at Christie’s New York, 19 March 2015, lot 425.

A related but larger (9 7/8 in. wide) Qianlong-marked peach-form washer, previously in the collection of James and Marilynn Alsdorf, is illustrated in 20 Years in Hong Kong - Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art Highlights, Christie's, Hong Kong, 2006, p. 149, and was sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 8 April 2014, lot 3007.