Printed from Woolley & Wallis

Description

A MASSIVE AND RARE CHINESE BLUE AND WHITE BOYS JAR, GUAN

SIX CHARACTER JIAJING MARK IN UNDERGLAZE BLUE AND OF THE PERIOD 1522-66

The baluster body vividly painted with a continuous garden landscape of plantain and pine trees amongst rocks and grass, with sixteen boys at play, one riding a hobby horse whilst being sheltered by a lotus leaf held by another, a group simulating school lessons before a screen beside a single boy pulling a small toy on a string, another small group playing with a cart, one holding a fan, three further boys at a table concentrating intently on a game, all above a band of overlapping lotus leaf lappets to the base, the shoulder with a band of shaped cartouches containing sprays of flowering and fruiting branches, all reserved on a cell ground divided by auspicious symbols, 38.8cm.

Provenance: an English private collection. Christie's London, 8th June 1987, lot 151.

Cf. The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (II), pp.110-111, no.101, where a comparable jar with a cover is illustrated; see also J Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, pp.237-8, no.9:50 for an example from the Mrs Alfred Clark collection.

This auspicious subject of boys at play represents a wish for an abundance of male descendants and the continuing performance of filial duties. It can also be linked to the 'hundred boys' decoration, which refers to Zhou Wenwang, the founder of the Zhou dynasty who was blessed with ninety-nine sons by his twenty-four wives, as well as an adopted son.