Lot 34. A rare blue and white 'Phoenix and Poeny' jar, Guan, Yuan dynasty, 14th Century; height 27 cm., 10 5/8 in. Estimate 1,000,000 - 1,200,000 HKD. Lot sold 1,580,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's 2012

of baluster form, superbly potted with wide swelling shoulders gently tapering to a slightly flared foot, surmounted by a short upright neck with rolled lip encircled by a raised band, deftly painted around the shoulder with three phoenix with outstretched wings and curled tails amid lotus scrolls, between a border of blackberry-lily collaring the neck and a broad scroll of four large peony blooms covering the lower body, each differently rendered with a luxuriant array of petals, and borne on the same undulating scroll with attendant buds and foliage, all above a band of petal lappets enclosing pendent cloud-like trefoils and rings surrounding the foot, the different registers separated by narrow 'classic' scrolls and rendered with painterly brush strokes of deep cobalt blue accentuated by characteristic 'heaping and piling', the jar covered overall with a transparent glaze slightly tinged to blue, applied unevenly on the interior leaving free small patches of biscuit burnt orange, the broad foot ring and recessed base unglazed.

Literature: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 642.

Note: Yuan jars of this form are rarely found with this decoration of phoenix and peonies, which is well known, however, from taller jars with handles, see for example, another jar in the Meiyintang collection, illustrated in Krahl, op. cit., no. 640. A counterpart to this jar with dragons replacing the phoenix and the 'classic' scroll border appearing above the dragon band, is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red, vol I, Shanghai, 2000, pl. 4; another similar dragon design was sold in our London rooms, 15th April 1980, lot 233.

This Jingdezhen pattern was copied by contemporary kilns in Yunnan province, but in a much coarser ware; compare a piece sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 2nd November 1999, lot 654.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part IV - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains, Hong Kong, 09 oct. 2012