Vase with incised peony decoration. Porcelain. Longquan ware 龍泉窯. Longquan region, Zhejiang province 浙江省, 龍泉地區. Ming dynasty, about AD 1400-1460. Bequeathed by Brenda Zara Seligman. Registration number: 1973,0726.331 © Trustees of the British Museum

Height: 42.5 cm. This thickly potted vase has an ovoid body and a trumpet neck on a bevelled foot. The base is glazed, and the foot ring unglazed. It is decorated around the base with stylized lotus petals, around the belly and shoulder with incised peony scrolls and around the neck with vertical plantain leaves terminated with horizontal ridges.

Two dated vases in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, have similar decoration. One is inscribed seventh year of Xuande (AD 1432) and the other fifth year of Jingtai (AD 1454). While neither of these is identical to the present piece, they are both stylistically similar.

Bibliographic reference: Harrison-Hall, Jessica, Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, BMP, 2001

Ayers, John, The Seligman Collection of Oriental Art: Volume II, London, Lund Humphries, 1964