Porcelain 'palace bowl' with underglaze blue decoration. Made in Jingdezhen. Ming dynasty. Chenghua mark and period. The Seligman Collection of Oriental Art. Bequeathed by Brenda Zara Seligman. Registration number: 1973,0726.362. © Trustees of the British Museum

Height: 7 centimetres - Diameter: 15 centimetres. This delicately potted bowl has rounded spreading sides and stands on a tapering foot ring. It is painted inside and outside with a continuous scroll of flowering daylilies with leaves and tendrils, and inside in the centre with a stylized flower head with pointed petals. The outer rim, foot and join of foot to body are all emphasized by double blue lines. The base carries a six-character Chenghua reign mark in a double ring. 

Daylilies are native to East Asia. They are mentioned in the "Book of Odes" and in ancient pharmacopoeias as herbs useful for helping one to forget one's sorrows. The buds may be dried and used for medicines. Daylilies are among the earliest eastern plants brought to the West; they had arrived by the first century ad and are mentioned by Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides.

A pair of identical bowls is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and another is in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, now in the British Museum.

Bibliographic reference: - Harrison-Hall, Jessica, Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, BMP, 2001

- Ayers, John, The Seligman Collection of Oriental Art: Volume II, London, Lund Humphries, 1964