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Hello, I am trying to find out more about this piece . I had the characters translated and someone told me it meant 'made in Qianlong year'?

your friend's translation is literally correct but the mark refers to the Qianlong reign period overall (much of the 18th century). however, this piece is much more recently made than that, perhaps brand new. people put Qianlong reign marks on all sorts of things these days to try to confer the impression of classiness.

While the characters translate to "Made during the Qianlong Reign", they do not in this case mean that your vase was made during the Qianlong reign. From what I can tell from the photo, the vase appears to be fairly contemporary with an artificial patina serving as ground to highlight the brighter molded metal motifs. This lends an appearance similar to the Japanese shibayama mixed metal technique, though it is difficult to say whether your vase is Japanese or not.

Best regards,

Bill H.

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