Painted in deep, bright underglaze blue with two dragons pursuing flaming pearls around the compressed body between a band of overlapping petals rising from the shallow spreading foot and a narrowruyi border at the base of the narrow upright leaf tips encircling the trumpet neck, with a double-line border inside the everted mouth rim, fitted box.

Note: There appear to be no other published examples similar to this Wanli period leys jar. Compare, however, a Chenghua period (1465-87) blue and white leys jar in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrated by S. Valenstein in A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, rev. ed., 1989, col. pl. no. 23; and an identical piece in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. F. Gordon Morrill on loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated by D. Lion-Goldschmidt in Ming Porcelain, New York, 1978, p. 109, no. 79. Both of the latter jars are painted differently around the body, but exhibit a similar band of overlapping petals painted around the trumpet neck. See, also, a Zhengde period zhadou in yellow and green glazes with a dragon chasing a flaming pearl around the body painted in a manner similar to the present lot, illustrated by J. Ayers in Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, vol. 1, 1999, p. 123, no. 70 [A150].