JIAJING SIX-CHARACTER MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1522-1566)

Double gourd vases of this size and with characteristically round upper and lower bulbs are particularly characteristic of the Jiajing period. The majority of these vases bear one of two decorative schemes. One group, like that in the Gemeentelijk Museum, Het Princessehof, Leeuwarden, illustrated by D. Lion-Goldschmidt, La Porcelaine Ming, Office du Livre, 1978, col. pl. 123, are decorated with cranes, peaches and poetic characters among clouds above waves. This group has a band of overlapping plantain leaves around the mouth and lingzhi fungus bands around their waist and foot. On the second group the lower bulb is decorated with deer, cranes and tortoise under pine and peach trees, while the upper bulb has cranes and trees twisted into auspicious characters. This group has classic scrolls at mouth and foot, peach scroll at the waist and a band of petal panels around the shoulder of the lower bulb. One of these in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan is illustrated in Blue and White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, vol. V, pl. 4.

A number of examples of both of these two types are known in public and private collections, but the decoration on the current vase with the imperial creatures, dragon and phoenix, as roundels is extremely rare.