Meiping with fruiting branches. Porcelain with underglaze cobalt-blue decoration. Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province 江西省, 景德鎮. Ming dynasty, Yongle period, AD 1403–24. On loan from Sir Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art. PDF  A610 © Trustees of the British Museum

Height: 285 mm. Diameter: 177 mm. Underglaze blue with wide band of fruiting branches including peaches, cherries and pomegranate between bands of lappets and plantain leaves. All decorative bands separated by parallel blue lines. Base unglazed. 

This meiping 梅瓶 is painted with sprays of peach, loquat, pomegranates, lychee, crab-apple and cherry around the body, with a border of stiff plantain leaves below and pendant petal panels above. Its base is unglazed. Imperial ceramics were relatively expensive to produce as the kilns consumed large quantities of fuel to reach the required high temperatures and the porcelains had to be fired in individual saggars (clay fire boxes). Each of these saggars could only be used once since they vitrified which precluded sufficient circulation of air in the firing.

Bibliographic reference: Medley, Margaret, Illustrated Catalogue of Underglaze Blue and Copper Red Decorated Porcelains, London, University of London, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1976

Pierson, Stacey, Illustrated Catalogue of Underglaze Blue and Copper Red Decorated Porcelains in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, University of London, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, 2004

Pierson, Stacey, Blue and White for China: Porcelain Treasures in the Percival David Collection, London, Percival David Foundation, 2004