2. Large underglaze blue and copper red porcelain jar (guan)
Yuan dynasty, c. 1320 - 1352
Height: 33.0cm
There appear to be only four other related guan jars of this rare type, three of which are in institutional collections. The famous example which belonged to Sir Percival David is now in the British Museum, London and while a pair excavated in Baoding, Hebei province in 1964, are now in the Palace Museum, Beijing and in Hebei Museum, Shijiazhuang. The fourth example is in a private collection.
Together, these five jars form a small and extremely rarified group, likely made for a patron at the highest level of Yuan society. They are not only unusual and visually striking, but technically would have been at the cutting edge of Yuan porcelain production, featuring the combined use of painted underglaze cobalt blue and underglaze copper-red decoration with applied relief elements using moulding, carving, incising and beaded borders
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View Blue and white porcelain from the Yuan and early Ming dynasties