Stemmed bowl, Ming dynasty, Xuande mark and period, AD 1426–35, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. Porcelain with underglaze cobalt-blue decoration. Height: 10,5 cm, Diameter: 8 cm. Bequeathed by Marjorie K Coldwell. Field Collection by Maj Hay, 1943,0215.12 © 2017 Trustees of the British Museum

Thickly potted globular porcelain stem bowl with underglaze blue decoration. This thickly potted globular stem bowl has a narrow inverted mouth and a high spreading hollow stem with a stepped edge, glazed inside. A continuous scroll of daylilies with their distinctive star-like flowers is depicted in shades of fuzzy blue cobalt with a zigzag petal border above and petal bands below and around the foot. The edge of the foot is decorated with individual dots. It is marked with a horizontal six-character Xuande reign mark in the floral section read from right to left. Inside in the centre is a single lotus flower in a medallion. 

Originally this stem bowl would have had a domed cover. An identical stem bowl with a damaged cover was excavated in the Xuande strata in 1993 at Zhushan, Jingdezhen. Another example with an intact cover, also with a Xuande mark, is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei. Further identical pieces are in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, and the Capital Museum, Beijing. Harrison-Hall 2001 4:21