The reticulated jar is decorated around the mid-section with a continuous scene of scholars in a landscape amidst pines and clouds, above a band of petal lappets encircling the foot and below a band of peonies on the shoulder, and with vaporous clouds on the waisted neck. The cover is decorated with flower sprays beneath a biscuit finial of a seated sage. 17 ½ in. (44.4 cm.) high

ProvenanceMr. and Mrs. Isaac D. Fletcher (d. 1917) Collection.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accessioned in 1918. 

Notesfahua jar with very similar subsidiary borders, but with a main band of the Eight Immortals around the sides, is illustrated by E. Gorer and J. F. Blacker, Chinese Porcelains and Hard Stones, vol. II, London, 1911, pl. 195. See, also, the fahua jar with a broad band of scholars in  a landscape similar to that on the present jar, and also with similar subsidiary bands, from the Ira and Nancy Koger Collection, sold at Christie’s New York, 19 September 2006, lot 238.

Christie's. Collected in America: Chinese Ceramics from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 15 September 2016, New York, Rockefeller Plaza