Lot 101. A very rare blue and white 'dragon' vase (yuhuchunping), Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368); 9 3/4 in., 24.8 cm. Estimate 100,000 — 150,000 USD. Lot sold 216,000 USD. © Sotheby's.

of slender pear shape, the well-rounded lower body elegantly tapering to a thin waisted neck flaring widely to a trumpet mouth, boldly painted in a deep cobalt-blue with an animated 'three-clawed' dragon, its writhing body undulating around the body of the vase with scaly limbs striding amidst stylized flame and cloud motifs, its grinning face eagerly gazing towards a single 'flaming pearl', the interior rim painted with a band of linked scrolls, all against a milky-colored ground with tinges of light greyish-blue. Quantité: 1

Note: A similar bottle vase excavated at Wutonghua, Wengniute Banner, north of Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, was included in the exhibition Empires Beyond the Great Wall, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, 1994, cat.no. 91. Two other vases of this form with similar rim border in the interior, formerly in the Charles Russell collection are now in Japan: one sold in our London rooms, 12th February 1936, lot 75, later in the Ataka collection and now in the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, was included in the Exhibition of Blue and White Wares in Yuan Dynasty, 14th Century Ching-te Chên Wares, Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, cat.no. 24; the other, later in the Alfred Clark collection, was included in the exhibition Far Eastern Blue-and-White Porcelain, Mitsukoshi, Tokyo, 1977, cat.no. 12. Another dragon bottle with a simplified keyfret border around the foot and the missing neck replaced in gilded wood, was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 28th April 1998, lot 726.  

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 31 mars 2005