Featured Please help with age of Chinese vase

Hi all. Been off the site for awhile, but could use a little help dating my big ole lamp. Leaning towards it being Guangxu, but I'm terrible with dating Chinese pieces.

I got it from a recently widowed friend. The lamp belonged to her husband's grandmother. The story I got was that he knocked it over and broke it as a child. Grandma fixed it and eventually had it converted to a lamp. It was given to him when she passed away. It's 27" tall (not including the lamp parts). I'm trying not to take it apart to check for marks, since it has been repaired. It's very stable, but those lamp parts might be what's keeping it that way!

 

Very Nice.
I would guess mid to late 1800s.

@blooey @Couch Potato Wannabe

 

It is very very nice, and I agree on mid to late 19th century, would be easier to give a more solid confirmation of age if you de-lamped it and got a shot of the base, but I understand the hesitation there.

 

Super quality, lucky you!

 

Thank you all so very much! Wish it didn't have the damage, but it's a keeper anyway.

 

This is the closest I can find to yours, whilst still not being exactly the same.
Chinese late Qing dragon and phoenix yellow ground globular porcelain vase, used for a marriage ceremony during the late Qing period.
Fine Chinese Ming Chenghua Style.
Measures 72.5cm tall

 

That's amazing! Great find, tater. Thank you.

 

@sassafras Personally I prefer yours to the ebay piece, even if broken!

 

Awww....thanks, Blooey!

 

A picture of the bottom would be good. Both vases have nothing to do with "Chenghua style".

 

Any case that is drilled to turn it into a lamp is basically worthless (with rare exceptions, but rare pieces do not abound and are very pricey and no dealer or collector in their right mind would turn one into a lamp.) There are many such decorative pieces around and they are quite common in China. Some better pieces are sometimes displayed as lamps, but not drilled through. They sit on a hardwood base, and the wiring is done through a tube that follows the contour of the piece. That way the vase is never damaged.

 

Although it is ideal to have perfect pieces, I don't mind drilled, repaired and tinkered pieces and I hardly consider them worthless. Oh and I doubt many pieces of the quality of the OP's are common anywhere, LEAST of all in China!

 

Agree. There were a couple of de-lamped pieces and one still a lamp in the Sotheby's auction that my bowl was in last month - they went for substantial sums!

 

I don't actually mind that folks are obsessed with mint condition when it comes to old things - more for me!!

 

Most of what I collect has flaws. As far as I'm concerned, it adds character to most pieces. Makes me think of all the history and stories the piece has to tell, the hands that held it, who used it, etc.

Since I'm a packrat and I never sell anything I collect... not a problem for me (other than the lack of space and a mad spouse trying to find the next empty spot to put a foot down without tripping on something!)

 

One fun piece I have came to me in approximately 250 pieces... as it had been very much shattered. I had to reassemble it. The jigsaw puzzle from hell. The pieces were so well looked after and the fragments were so well collected, that upon fitting them back together the seams were invisible. There is only one place you can look at it to even tell it has been broken, and that is because a piece is actually missing, unfortunately, they never found that piece.

Needless to say, I am extremely patient.