The complex technique required to produce this kind of decoration required the present jar to be fired in the biscuit, then the yellow enamel was applied and the piece fired for the second time. The overglaze iron-red was then added to provide the ground, reserving the design in yellow before being fired for the third time. Compare with four other jars of this same pattern; the first from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, included in the O. C. S. Exhibition, Iron in the Fire, 1988, illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 64; a covered jar from the National Palace Museum, Taibei, is illustrated by D. Lion-Goldschmidt, Ming Porcelain, pl. 145; one formerly from the Avery Brundage Collection now in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, illustrated by He Li, Chinese Ceramics: A New Comprehensive Survey, 1996, p. 239, no. 483; and one from the British Rail Pension Fund, sold in Hong Kong, 16 May 1989, no. 28.

A related covered jar of a similar 'dragon' design in the Ataka Collection, Osaka, is illustrated in Sekai Toji Zenshu, vol. 14, Tokyo, 1976, no. 80. The Ataka jar, of a larger size at 27 cm. high, is designed with a simple classic scroll around the collar rather than ruyi clouds.