CHONGZHEN PERIOD, DATED JIAXU CYCLICAL YEAR CORRESPONDING TO 1634

This vase is vividly painted on one side depicting a phoenix in flight above peonies and bamboo, the other side inscribed with a poem followed by a signature Wang Runzhi and jiaxu cyclical date. Stylistically, the exquisite free strokes and multiple shades of blue seen on this vase are typically seen on vases from the late Ming period, allowing us to date this vase to jiaxu year of the Chongzhen reign, corresponding to 1634.

A vase in the Musée Guimet, Paris, bearing the same date but painted with butterflies and grasshoppers among flowering plants and lacking the phoenix, is illustrated in Daisy Lion-Goldschmidt, Ming Porcelain, London, 1978, cat. no. 247. The present vase is discussed together with the Guimet vase by R. S. Kilburn in the publication Transitional Wares and Their Forerunners, who regards them as the earliest precisely datable pieces of this style of decoration.