An identical jue is illustrated in Mayuyama, 70 years, vol. I, no. 1079. Another is in the Baur Collection, Geneva, illustrated in the Catalogue, vol. II, no. A473; while a pair was exhibited in Frankfurt am Main at the Kunstgewerbe Museum in 1923, Chinesische Keramik, Catalogue, nos. 937 and 938. A further example from the Jingguangtang Collection was sold in these Rooms, 3 November 1996, lot 563.

According to R. Kerr, Bronzes, p. 30, jue vessels were used during the bronze age for heating alcohol over fire; the post-like handles on the rim were originally used to lift the vessel full of warmed liquid away from the heat. While they were often dedicated for temple use as altar vessels, she notes that later examples were probably relatively cheap to buy when they were made of metal. It would seem that porcelain ones were always more highly regarded. A white porcelain jue was excavated from the early Yongle strata in 1982 on the site of the Imperial kilns at Jingdezhen, included in the Exhibition of Imperial Porcelain of the Yongle and Xuande Periods Excavated from the Site of the Ming Imperial Factory at Jingdezhen, Catalogue, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 116, where it is noted that the first Ming Emperor Hongwu ordered white porcelain jue to be used in sacrificial ceremonies.

(US$28,000-35,000)