jar BM-1965-0726.1

Period:Ming dynasty Production date:1620-1644 (circa)
Materials:porcelain
Technique:glazed, underglazed,
Subjects:archer,flower arms/armour domestic building landscape
Dimensions:Diameter: 29.50 centimetres (jar) Diameter: 19 centimetres (lid) Height: 48.50 centimetres (jar with lid) Height: 39.10 centimetres (jar) Height: 11.40 centimetres (lid) Weight: 10.20 kilograms (jar with lid) Weight: 9.35 kilograms (jar) Weight: 0.85 kilograms (lid)

Description:
Porcelain jar and cover with underglaze blue decoration. This massive ovoid jar has a short neck with a rolled out-turned rim and a domed overhanging cover with a large finial knob. It is painted in underglaze blue with four archers in oval cartouches, each identically represented in great detail wearing a plumed turban with a trailing end, long moustache and beard, and a buttoned coat with a scarf tied round the waist, holding a bow and arrow and carrying a quiver with further arrows on his back. The four panels partly cover a landscape border with Chinese figures, banana and other plants, stupa-like structures and Western-style houses. The rest of the jar is decorated with exotic flower scrolls with tulips, carnations and other stylized blooms. The cover is decorated to match, with four panels with Chinese figures between tulips, and with a landscape scene on the knob.
IMG


Comments:Harrison-Hall 2001:The archers are probably copied from a Persian source. Similar figures are depicted on Persian textiles as well as in Persian paintings and drawings of the first half of the seventeenth century. It has been suggested, in view of the appearance of the moustache, turban and sash revealing a pot belly, that the most probable original source for these figures is drawings in the Qazvin of Isfahan style of c. 1580-1620. The Chinese potter probably followed a Mughal copy of a Safavid drawing. Pieces such as this jar were, however, not necessarily made for the Middle Eastern market, where so far no comparable example has come to light. Another jar of this type was in the collection of Queen Mary II (reigned 1688-94) at Hampton Court Palace, south west of London, which is documented in an inventory of 1696-7 that is preserved in the Public Records Office. An almost identical jar where the cartouches, however, contain Chinese figures in Chinese landscapes, is in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kassel, Germany. Harrison-Hall and Krahl 1994:The non-Chinese flower motifs are derived from earlier, more formal designs like those seen on another jar, BM 1963.0520.4, but are here painted in thin outlines with stippled details as if imitating the stitches of embroidery.