JIAJING NIANZAO SIX-CHARACTER MARK IN A RING AND OF THE PERIOD (1522-1566)

According to the Jiangxi Sheng Da Zhi (Gazetteer of Jiangxi Province) compiled in 1560, in Jiajing 21^st year (1542), ‘one hundred pieces of blue and white jars decorated with the Eight Immortals crossing the sea’ were made by the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen. The current jar is likely to be one of the one hundred pieces from this imperial order.

A Jiajing jar of identical form and design is in the Huaihaitang Collection, illustrated in Eternal Enlightenment: the Virtual World of Jiajing Emperor, Hong Kong, 2023, pl. 95. Another jar of the same form and with the same arrangement of the reign mark, but painted with phoenix and cranes, is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Porcelain of the National Palace Museum: Blue and White Ware of the Ming Dynasty, book V, Hong Kong, 1965, no. 17.