Lot 680. A rare polychrome-enameled 'dragon' jar and cover, Ming dynasty, 16th century. Height 15 1/2  in., 39.5 cm. Estimate 50,000 — 70,000 USD. Courtesy Sotheby's.

of wide baluster form swelling generously from a slightly tapered flat base to a gently waisted short neck, the rounded sides brightly painted in red, green and yellow enamels with a wide band depicting two pairs of confronting dragons contesting a'flaming pearl' amid flame wisps and fiery cloud scroll enclosed within line borders, below a band of four striding dragons each in pursuit of a 'flaming pearl' and a row of stylized lotus scrolls encircling the neck, repeated above the foot, the domed cover with further floral meander and a row of ruyi-heads surmounted by a bud-form knop (2).

Provenance: French Private Collection, since the 19th century.

Note: There are few comparable jars to the present example.  The guan form with its colorful palette, large size and dynamic subject matter is rare and represents the ingenuity of Jingdezhen artisans working during the transformative 16th century. The exuberant painterly style and polychrome decoration reflects the changing aesthetic of the period initiated not only by the disparate tastes of the Zhengde and Jiajing Emperors, but also by the influence of increased international trade, much of which was clandestine, and the emergence of a wealthy merchant class.

A jar and cover of the same form and palette with dragon decoration is in the British Museum, London, bequeathed by Francis Howard Paget in 1945, illustrated in Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, pl. 9:105. The Tokyo Museum of Art has two similar jars and covers; one with dragon decoration is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, The Tokyo National Museum, vol. 1, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 35; and another but with phoenix, illustrated in Hirota Fukkosai Collection: Ceramics, Tokyo, 2007, cat. no. 72.

Compare also a related guan and cover with a design of Buddhist lions in the Matsuoka Museum of Art, Tokyo, illustrated in Toyo toji meihin zuroku [Catalogue of Oriental Ceramic Masterpieces], Tokyo, 1991, pl. 84