Each of square section and heavily potted in the form of a tall zun, the neck decorated with opposing bands of leaf tips, the middle section applied on each side with a lion-mask handle positioned above a rock and flanked by molded dragons leaping amidst molded flowers and leaves repeated on the lower section, with a faux shaped apron painted in blue and iron red below and bands of classic scroll at the rims, that on the mouth rim interrupted by the reign mark in a panel, the base unglazed, wood stands.

Provenance: Sparks, London, 1932.

Note: Wucai vases of this shape with similar molded decoration have been published. A very similar example of this size and date, also relief molded, is illustrated in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, vol. 1, Tokyo, 1976, p. 308, no. 917, and another in the Tokyo National Museum is illustrated, p. 306, no. 914. Another with bands of shorter leaf tips on the neck is illustrated in Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 14, Tokyo, 1976, p. 211, pl. 222. See, also, the vase in the Hakutsuru Art Museum, Kobe, illustrated in Hakutsuru Bijutsukan zohin zuroku, Kyoto, 1988, pl. 129. The dragons on the present vase and those like it have a wild, animated quality as they leap amidst the flower sprigs. 

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 22 March 2007