MING DYNASTY, LATE 15TH/16TH CENTURY

Fahua was popular during the middle Ming period, and manufactured in both northern and southern China. The term fahua means a design composed of lines. The glazes are poured inside the contours formed by the raised lines, which prevent the glazes from merging. Several other jars with different scenes are illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Chinese Arts of the Ming and Ch'ing Periods, Tokyo National Museum, 1963, no. 377; one in the Victoria and Albert Museum missing its neck, by L. Ashton and B. Gray, Chinese Art, London, 1953 ed., p. 279, pl. 108b; and another illustrated in A Pictorial Record of Early Ming Ceramics, Tokyo, 1963, no. 135.