A rare doucai 'dragon' jar, Qing dynasty, Yongzheng period | 清雍正 闘彩團龍紋罐

This jar is particularly notable for its delicately painted motif of dragon roundels in soft washes of colored enamel outlined and detailed in cobalt. The motif and color scheme draws from imperial porcelain of the Chenghua period (r. 1465-1487), adapted and reinterpreted in accordance to contemporary taste. A Yongzheng innovation is evident in the use of cobalt not only to delineate the different elements of the design but also to create texture and a sense of movement through the dragons' fine network of scales and their manes.

Jars of this design are held in important museums and private collections worldwide; see a closely related jar from the collection of Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, in the British Museum, London (accession no. Franks.338), illustrated in Sekai toji zhenshu / Ceramic Art of the World, vol. 15, Tokyo, 1983, pl. 195; another in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (accession no. 605-1907), is illustrated in Gulland, Chinese Porcelain, London, 1911, pl. 670; and a further jar from the E.T. Chow Collection was sold in our London rooms in 1974, in our Hong Kong rooms in 1981, and again, 30th April 1996, lot 487.