MING DYNASTY, 14TH-EARLY 15TH CENTURY

The peony scroll on the primary band is achieved by a combinative technique of sprig-moulding and carving, and it is very likely that the difficulty and time required of such process had contributed to the rarity of this type of vases. No other vase of the same design appears to have been published and only a small group of similar examples are known. The closest example is a vase in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, which is decorated with a chrysanthemum scroll as the primary band, illustrated by Ye Peilan, Yuandai ciqi, Beijing, 1998, p. 259, no. pl. 447 (fig. 1). Compare also to three other examples decorated with panels enclosing alternating fruiting and flowering sprigs around the globular body, the first is illustrated in op. cit., p. 259, pl. 446 and in Sekai Toji Zenshu, Shogakukan Series, vol. 13, Japan, 1981, p. 181, pl. 150; and the other two are in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, and illustrated in Green-Longquan Celadon of the Ming Dynasty, Taipei, 2009, pp. 148-151, pls. 75 (fig. 2) and 76. It is also interesting to compare to a smaller Longquan shiliu zun without appliques and carved decorations in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated by Huang Weiwen in ‘Qinggong jiucang Mingdai Longquan qingci yanjiu’, The Research of Porcelain of Longquan Kilns, Beijing, 2013, p. 252, fig. 14, and col. pl. 31 (fig. 3).