Bottle with butterflies and daylilies. 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 601 © Trustees of the British Museum

Height: 340 mm. Porcelain bottle vase of yuhuchun form, with a pear-shaped body, narrow neck and flaring mouth rim. There is a band of lingzhi fungi in underglaze blue below the mouth rim, plantain leaves and lotus flowers in underglaze blue on the neck, and lily plants with a butterfly in underglaze blue on the body. The base is glazed.

Potters painted flowering daylily plants on either side of this pear-shaped 玉壺春瓶yuhuchun ping each with a butterfly hovering above. In China, heavily-perfumed lilies traditionally symbolise harmony and unity. Their naturalistic depiction here is influenced by ink and colour small-format paintings. The design is extremely rare among surviving Chinese porcelains and very skilfully executed. Each blade-like leaf and the petal edges are outlined with a denser blue and in filled with a paler blue wash. Similarly gradations of blue are achieved in the depiction of the butterfly. This extraordinarily accomplished control of the underglaze cobalt pigment is a characteristic of the finest Yongle blue-and-white wares.

Bibliographic reference: Hobson, Robert L, A Catalogue of Chinese Pottery and Porcelain in the Collection of Sir Percival David Bt., F.S.A., London, The Stourton Press, 1934

Pierson, Stacey, Designs as Signs: Decoration and Chinese Ceramics, London, Percival David Foundation, 2001

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

Krahl, Regina; Harrison-Hall, Jessica, Chinese Ceramics: Highlights of the Sir Percival David Collection, London, BMP, 2009