A  blue and white  'dragon and tiger' baluster vase. Qing dynasty,  mid-17th century. Photo Sotheby's

the body of slender baluster form rising from a flared foot and surmounted by a cylindrical neck with galleried rim, painted in bright cobalt-blue tones with a tiger in a rocky landscape crouching and looking up at a ferocious dragon clasping a flaming pearl in its claws emerging from misty cloud scrolls beside a gnarled pine tree, all above a band of linked pendent ruyi scrolls and below a diaper band with four oval cartouches enclosing beribboned Auspicious Symbols, the neck encircled with linked upright ruyi scrolls, keyfret pattern and a band of swirls, the rim bordered by another keyfret band, the base inscribed with an apocryphal six-character Chenghua mark  43.2cm., 17in. Estimate 10,000-15,000 GBP. Unsold

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art. Londres | 09 Nov 2011 www.sothebys.com