JIAJING SIX CHARACTER MARK IN IRON RED WITHIN A DOUBLE CIRCLE AND OF THE PERIOD (1522-1566)

The present water pot, with its elegantly incurving shoulder, appears to be unique, with no other exact example decorated in iron-red having been published. A closely related Jiajing-marked water pot of similar form but decorated with green enamelled dragons is illustrated by John Ayers in Chinese Ceramics in the Koger Collection, London, 1985, p. 106-107, fig. 82. Another Jiajing marked example, also decorated with dragons in green enamel, but of a slightly larger size, is in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, and is illustrated in Imperial Porcelains from the Reign of Jiajing, Longqing, and Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, Vol. 1, Beijing, 2018, p. 331, no. 203 (fig. 1).

It is very rare to find Ming imperial porcelain bearing iron-red marks. The earliest use of such mark can be found on Xuande wares, such as a copper-red decorated 'three fish' stem cup in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, which is illustrated in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Selected Hsüan-te Imperial Porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 1998, no. 82. Compare also a Zhengde wucai dish bearing an iron-red mark in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Wucai, Doucai: Porcelains in Polychrome and Contrasting Colours - The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, 1999, pl. 2.