File:Chinese - "Three-String" Vase ("The Peach Bloom Vase") - Walters 49155 - Profile.jpg

English: This vase of apparently simple shape swells slowly as it rises from its foot. At the shoulder it contracts sharply, and at the neck there are three sharp-edged collars punctuating a point of union and breaking the glassy smoothness of the body of the vessel; the mouth spreads slightly. Beneath the glassy surface, one can detect subtle modulations from dull pink to red to grayish green - the whole offering a seemingly infinite variety of nuances. In Chinese, the color is sometimes called kidney-bean red, and the shape is that of a "three-string vase" (after the rings on the neck). The vase was made as one of a set of eight different vessels, all intended for the scholar's table. There were flower vases of different shapes, together with vessels used for washing brushes and holding red seal-paste. The glaze is now thought to be the result of sandwiching a layer of copper pigment between two layers of clear glaze- the end-product of a period of experimentation with copper red glazes that began in the late 17th century. The shape of the vase is an intellectualized and refined version of Song [Sung] Dynasty wares. Evidently there was court patronage; this vase may once have been owned by the first Prince Yi [I] (1686-1730), thirteenth son of the Kangxi [K'ang-hsi] emperor and ancestor of its 19th-century owner.