A Chinese Imperial porcelain blue and white ewer and cover

A Chinese Imperial porcelain blue and white ewer and cover, the pear-shaped body painted in the Ming style with peaches and loquat enclosed in quatrefoil panels on a ground of flowering peony, the neck with a continuous lotus scroll beneath upright stiff leaves, the handle painted with five jui fungus, a band of gadroons around the foot, the spout with a composite scroll, the base with a six character Qianlong seal mark and of the period 1736-95, damages, 28cm. (2) A similar Qianlong ewer is in the National Palace Museum collection Taipei, and is illustrated in vol 2, pl 7 in the catalogue of Qing dynasty porcelain. This ewer closely follows the early 15th century prototypes, one is illustrated by Regina Krahl and John Ayers in Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istambul, vol. II, no. 618, p.415; another is illustrated by John Alexander Pope in Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, pl.54, no.29.427.