Large TIANQIUPING porcelain and polychrome enamel vase in the style of the blue-white with globular body and long cylindrical neck, decorated with nine fierce dragons and clouds. Apocryphal Xuande mark, qing period 19th century.

Height : 44cm

+33 (0)7 83 53 67 12

From a French collection.

The dragon motif is perhaps the most important in Chinese ceramic decorative repertory being symbolic of Imperial power, and its stylistic treatment on the present vase combines the very best characteristics of mythical images from earlier Yuan and Ming periods. It is interesting to note the extraordinary expression and stance of the dragons painted on the present vase, which rendered on such a massive spherical body would have been remarkably difficult to achieve. In this instance these mythical creatures are each depicted with their own playful expressions, and their elongated scaly bodies are executed with precise movements of the brush giving an impression of the dragons' rhythmic motion as they straddle around the globular body.