Lot 117. A Rare Pair of Wucai Jars, Transitional Period. Estimate 40,000 — 50,000 USD. Lot sold 42,000 USD. Photo: Sothebys.

the broad baluster body of each vividly painted with elegant court scenes, one showing a young woman dancing, accompanied by several lady musicians playing a drum, flute, clappers and wind-pipes, before a court lady, attended by a courtier and lady attendants holding fans and musical instruments wrapped in silk, a long peacock feather placed in a vase on the side, the second jar showing the same court lady graciously receiving a group of young scholars, one scholar kneeling before her, surrounded by court ladies including one playfully wearing a scholar's hat, attendants hovering by holding silk-wrapped gifts and a wine flask, all in an elegant terrace pavilion shielded by ornamental screens, the domed covers with boys playing amidst rockwork. Quantité: 2 - 17 1/2 in., 44.5cm.

Note: This jar is remarkable for its depiction of a lively group of female musicians in a garden setting and with its companion jar showing several scholars paying their respects to an elegant court lady, and may possibly be illustrations of the Moon Goddess Chang E in the Guanghan Palace on the moon, the uncertainty being the absence of the immortal hare pummeling the elixer of life or visual references to the moon. See a similar pair with a dancer and female musicians sold in these rooms, December 9th, 1994, lot 50, and a jar with similar motif differently rendered in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated in He Li, Chinese Ceramics, London, 1996, pl. 644. A polychrome jar of this shape depicting the Moon Goddess Chang E in a similar setting, was sold in our London rooms, May 12th, 1992, lot 65 and again in our Hong Kong rooms, October 30th, 2002, lot 248.