18TH CENTURY

The present jar is based on a Jiajing-period prototype, such as the example in the Palace Collection, Beijing, illustrated in Imperial Porcelains from the Reign of Jiajing, Longqing and Wanli of the Ming Dynasty, Beijing, 2018, pp. 44-45, no. 7, and the jar sold at Christie’s New York, 21 March 2000, lot 314.

It is noted in Comprehensive Records of Zaobanchu Workshops that the Qianlong Emperor on occasion commissioned porcelains based on Ming prototypes with respective Ming reign marks. For example, it is recorded that on the nineteenth day of the second month of the thirty-third year of the Qianlong reign (1768), the Qianlong Emperor commissioned the Imperial Kilns at Jingdezhen to fire three blue and white washers in the style of Jiajing and be inscribed with Jiajing reign marks. These wares were later delivered by Ilingga, Supervisor of the Imperial Kilns, on the eighteenth day of the eleventh month.

A pair of blue and white ‘dragon’ jars based on Jiajing prototypes and bearing Jiajing marks, but dating to the 18th century, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 9 October 2019, lot 168.