Lot 331. A blue and white 'dragon' jardinière, Jiajing mark and period; 55.6cm., 21 7/8 in. Estimate 60,000 - 80,000 GBP. Lot sold 73,250 GBP. Photo Sotheby's

heavily potted with tapering sides rising to a lipped rim, the exterior painted with two dragons pacing amongst radiating cloud scrolls and flame wisps in pursuit of flaming pearls, the rim inscribed with a horizontal six-character Jiajing mark

Provenance: Rousseau-Léveillé, Paris (according to label).

Note: The present jardinière is impressive for its large size and unusually animated design of two ferocious five-clawed scaly dragons amongst stylized clouds painted in deep cobalt blue.  It belongs to a small group of Jiajing mark and period  vessels of this type, all painted with dragons but with four different design backgrounds: dragons among clouds, water plants and lotus scroll decoration.  Vessels of this large dimension were especially difficult to produce, as explained by R.L. Hobson in The Wares of the Ming Dynasty, London, 1923, p. 19 and p. 110, where the author notes that this type of jardinière needed up to nine days of firing and that Imperial potters were driven to despair, since many consistently failed to come out perfectly year after year.

For a similar dragon jardinière see one,  from the J.M. Hu collection and now in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Lu Minghua, Mingdai guanyao ciqi, Shanghai, 2007, fig. 3-84, together with another Jiajing mark and period jardinière of this shape painted with Buddhist lions playing with brocade balls, fig. 3-85.Compare also a jardinière sold at Christie’s New York, 2nd December 1994, lot 380, and again at Christie’s Hong Kong, 21st September 2004, lot 242; and a third offered in our New York rooms, 17th September 1998, lot 216. Another slightly deeper example, in the Jingdezhen Ceramics Museum, is illustrated in Keitokuchin jiki, Jingdezhen, 1982, p. 44. 

Compare a jardinière painted with dragons amongst scrolling lotus, from the Palmer Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University, Philadelphia, sold in our New York rooms, 23rd March 2004, lot 640; and an example with the dragons amongst water plants, also sold in our New York rooms, 16th September 2009, lot 188.

Jiajing jardinières can also be found painted with winged dragons pursuing flaming pearls above waves and rocks; for example, see one included in the exhibition Chinese Ceramics, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1965, cat. no. 29; and another sold in these rooms, 31st May 1989, lot 82.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. London, 07 nov. 2012