Covered jar of gold inlaid with gems, Ming dynasty, Xuande reign (1426-1435). Gold with semiprecious stones. H x W x D: 9.5 x 9.4 x 8.4 cm. Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment. Freer Gallery of Art, F1952.29a-b © Smithsonian 

This jar is part of a set of eight gold objects which reportedly came from the tomb of the Emperor of the Xuande reign (1426-1435). According to information provided by Fritz Low-Beer to the Freer Gallery of Art at the time of the object’s acquisition, Otto Burchard owned the entire group in China by 1937 or 1938 when he offered it for sale to the collector George Eumorfopoulos, see F. Low-Beer to A. G. Wenley, April 2, 1951, copy in object file. Burchard, a former owner of Dr. Otto Burchard & Co. in Berlin, moved in 1932 to Beijing from where he dealt in Chinese art and sold objects sourced there to European and American clients. For reported circumstances of the excavation of the gold objects collection see also A. J. B. Kiddell, “Note On A Blue And White Vase From The Tomb of The Emperor Hsuan Te,” Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 21 (1945-1946), 17, pl. 4; A. J. B. Kiddell, “Further Note on A Pair of Blue and White Vases From The Tomb of Emperor Hsuan Te,” Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 22 (1946-1947), 39, pl. 17, 18a, b; and John A. Pope, “Ming and Blue-and-White at Philadelphia,” Oriental Art, vol. III, no. 1 (1950), p. 21.