Lot 715. A very rare blue and white 'Peacock' jar, guan, Yuan dynasty (1279-1368); 9 in. (23 cm. ) high. Estimate USD 120,000 - USD 180,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2018

The heavily potted, tapering body is decorated on one side with a peacock with spread wings and extended tail and legs and on the reverse with a peahen shown descending, the two above bamboo and between flowering and budding tree peonies that grow from rocks positioned below each of the molded animal-mask handles. All between a band of petal lappets below and a band of peony scroll on the sloping shoulder. The neck is encircled by a band of classic scroll and flares towards the galleried rim decorated with diaper pattern.

Provenance: Private collection, Japan.
David Lin & Co., Taipei

Exhibited: Taipei, David Lin & Co., Yuan and Ming Blue and White Porcelain, 20-26 October, 2000, no.1.

Note: The small size of this jar as well as the manner in which it is decorated are unusual for Yuan blue and white jars of this type, which have lion-mask handles below a canted shoulder and a short neck below a galleried rim. Usually, the decoration is organized in two bands on the body, such as the example in the Cleveland Museum of Art, illustrated by M. Medley, Yuan Porcelain and Stoneware, London, 1974, pl. 45B; one illustrated in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, vol. 1, Tokyo, 1976, p. 231, pl. 694; and one in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, illustrated in Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 13, Tokyo, 1981, p. 209, pl. 195. On these jars the lower band is usually filled with leafy flower scroll, but the upper band is variously decorated: flower scroll on the Topkapi Saray jar, phoenixes on the Mayuyama jar, or phoenix and flower-filled pendent ruyi lappets on the Cleveland jar. On the present jar, the body has a single wide band of decoration above the lower petal lappet band, and no second band below the shoulder where the handles are located.