Arrow vase with guan glaze. Stoneware with crackled celadon glaze. Guan ware 官窯. Hangzhou, Zhejiang province 浙江省，杭州市. Ming dynasty, AD 1368–1644. On loan from Sir Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art. PDF 31 © Trustees of the British Museum

Height: 124 mm. Diameter: 72 mm. Diameter: 46 mm (base). Width: 27 mm (mouth). Depth: 23 mm (mouth). Guan-type stoneware 'arrow' vase with globular body and tall neck, and two tubular lug handles at the mouth. The vase has opaque grey glaze with even black-stained crackle.

It is modelled on the shape of an antique ‘arrow pot’, a vessel with short tubes either side of the narrow neck. In earlier dynasties, people played a drinking game of pitching arrows into the tubes and neck of larger bronze and ceramic pots of this shape.

Bibliographic reference: Yorke Hardy, Sheila, Tung, Ju, Kuan, Chun, Kuang-tung & Glazed I-hsing Wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, University of London, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1953

Pierson, Stacey, Illustrated catalogue of Ru, Guan, Jun, Guangdong and Yixing wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, University of London, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1999

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