Stem Cup. Porcelain with incised and anhua decoration and transparent tianbai glaze. Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province江西省, 景德鎮. Ming dynasty, Yongle mark and period, AD 1403–12. On loan from Sir Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art. PDF  A481 © Trustees of the British Museum

Height: 102 mm. Diameter: 153 mm. The stem cup has a white body and white glaze. There is a dragon in anhua slip on the interior. There is a mark on the interior.

The Yongle emperor introduced a four-character reign mark to porcelain, reflecting the close imperial supervision of production at Jingdezhen. Unusually here the mark is incised in the inner wall. The seal script characters 永樂年製 (Yongle nianzhi 'made in the Yongle reign') are framed by a double circle. Technically accomplished potters also made an 暗花 (anhua 'hidden or secret') design of a five-clawed dragon reaching for the reign mark around the inner wall. Chinese archaeologists have shown these delicately potted bodiless stembowls were part of a large order, fired between AD1403 and 1412.

Previous owner/ex-collection Hon Mountstuart William Elphinstone (Asia Archive: Margaret Medley PDF papers, 1980s)