Lot description
A MAGNIFICENT MING BLUE AND WHITE 'BOYS' JAR AND COVER JIAJING SIX-CHARACTER MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1522-1566) Exquisitely painted in underglaze-blue of brilliant deep purplish tone on the high-shouldered body with a continuous garden landscape scene of sixteen boys in various leisurely pursuits including one who is impersonating the school master, seated on a high-backed chair in front of a baby crawling towards a book, another boy pulling on strings attached to a toy cart on the ground, observed by his friend who is holding a large lotus leaf over the head of his companion riding a hobby-horse, in the further distance three boys are clustered around the square table watching over a jar, probably containing fighting crickets, whilst another is riding on a cart, being towed by his friend, with two others who are acting as attendants, one holding a large fan and the other offering a potted plant, all within a terraced garden with plantains and pine trees, between overlapping lappets at the base and shaped panels enclosing fruit and floral sprays reserved on a wan-diaper pattern ground on the shoulder; accompanied with a cover, the sides decorated with fruiting peach and lingzhi branches, the upper surface with trefoils enclosing radiating panels, surmounted by a bud-shaped finial with upright lappets below cash symbols and ruyi-heads 18 1/2in. (47 cm.) high
