Lot 8010. An exceptional and rare red and yellow-enamelled ‘Dragon’ jar, Jiajing six-character mark in underglaze blue and of the period (1522-1566). 5 3/4 in. (13.7 cm.) high. Estimate HKD 4,000,000 - HKD 6,000,000 (USD 514,314 - USD 771,470). Unsold. © Christies Images Ltd 2017

The jar is decorated with a pair of five-clawed dragons striding amidlingzhi sprays above a band of waves crashing against rocks, all brightly enamelled in iron red on a yellow ground with the outlines and details picked out in black, Japanese wood box.

Provenance: The Manno Art Museum, no. 388
Sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, One Man’s Vision, Important Chinese
Art from The Manno Art Museum, 28 October 2002, lot 540

Literature: Selected Masterpieces of the Manno Collection, Japan, 1988, no. 117

Note: The red and yellow combination is a distinctive colour scheme of the Jiajing period. The result required three firings: first at around 1300 °C for clear-glazed porcelain, then at a lower temperature for the yellow overglaze enamel, and finally at a still lower temperature for the black outlines and the iron-red background. The process was laborious and required meticulous attention to details, contributing to the high failure rate and thus the rarity of these jars.

Jars with the same design and comparable size, ranging from 12.7 cm. to 15.2 cm. high, are found in museums and private collections worldwide, see, for example, a jar in the Museum Yamato Bunkakan, Nara, illustrated in Mayuyama: Seventy Years no. 834; another in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, included in the Oriental Ceramic Society Exhibition, Iron in the Fire, 1988, and illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 64; a covered jar in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated by D. Lion-Goldschmidt, Ming Porcelain, Fribourg, 1978, no. 144; one formerly from the Avery Brundage Collection now in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, illustrated by He Li, Chinese Ceramics: A New Comprehensive Study, New York, 1996, p. 239, no. 483; one from the British Rail Road Pension Fund, sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 16 May 1989, no. 28; and one from the Meiyintang Collection, sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 7 April 2011, lot 66.

Jar with dragons amid clouds, Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Reign of the Jiajing emperor (1522-1566), Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. Porcelain with overglaze multicolor decoration. H. 5 1/2 in x Diam. 5 1/4 in, H. 14 cm x Diam. 13.3 cm. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60P1523 © 2017 Asian Art Museum Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture.

A yellow and red 'Dragon' jar, mark and period of Jiajing (1522-1566), from the Meiyintang Collection. 13.5 cm., 5 3/8 in. Sold for 2,420,000 HKD at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 7 April 2011, lot 66. Photo Sotheby's.

Compare also to two similar jars of smaller size with a more globular proportion, one is illustrated in Mayuyama: Seventy Years, no. 833, which has a serrated design on the neck, and another in the National Museum of China, illustrated in Zhongguo Guojia Bowuguan guancang wenwu yanjiu congshu: ciqi juan (Mingdai), Shanghai, 2007, p. 159, no. 85, together with a larger example (13.5 cm.) of the same colour scheme but with lotus scrolls and emblems, no. 86.