Baluster jar: C.714-1991

Titles

Baluster jar

Maker(s)

Unknown

Entities

• Jar

Categories

• Porcelain
• Hard-paste porcelain

Description

Baluster jar. Hard-paste porcelain painted in underglaze blue. The jar has a short neck, and a rounded rim painted brown. The rounded shoulders taper to a low grooved foot with flat, recessed, glazed base. The lower part of the footrim remains unglazed. The groove is painted with a brown line. Ruyi heads decorate the neck, and the shoulders have four roundels containing characters inscribed 'five sons graduate' reserved on diaper ground. The central scene is painted with five sons successful in the examinations returning home to their father, each with an attendant and a parasol, and visiting the Queen Mother of the West in the Moon, a hare with a pestle and mortar near her feet, above ruyi-shaped lappets round the foot.

Notes

History note: Purchased from Sotheby's, 20 July 1933, Sydney Vacher Collection, for £10.0s.0d, and described as of astronomical significance, Lot 57; Henry Scipio Reitlinger (d. 1950); the Reitlinger Trust, Maidenhead, from which transferred in 1991.

Legal notes

Bequeathed by H.S. Reitlinger, 1950; transferred from the Reitlinger Trust, 1991.

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1950) by Reitlinger, Henry Scipio

Dating

Ming
15th Century-16th Century
Circa 1400 - 1600