YUAN DYNASTY (1279-1368)

With its powerful form, bold design, the characteristic ‘heaping and piling’ effect, the present jar represents the epitome of blue and white production of the Yuan dynasty. The banded decoration represents typical design elements found on wares of this form, which combines the most characteristic elements of Yuan porcelain design: peony and lotus scrolls, classic scroll and lotus petals enclosing trefoil lappets. The generous use of cobalt on this jar also suggests that this would have been an extremely costly item to produce since cobalt oxide pigment in the Yuan period was a rare imported commodity from the Middle East.

Compare to two similarly decorated ‘peony’ jars of this form, with slight variation on decorative bands, one in the Topkapi Saray Museum collection, illustrated in Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, vol. II, London, 1986, col. pl. 581; one in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Art of Yuan Blue-and-white Porcelain, Shanghai, 2012, no. 8 (fig.1); another from the Jingguantang Collection, illustrated in Splendor of Ancient Chinese Art: Selections from the Collections of TT Tsui Galleries of Chinese Art Worldwide, Hong Kong, 1996, pl. 46, and sold at Christie’s London, 6 June 1988, lot 149.