Jar and Cover

A blue-and-white Chinese porcelain jar and cover with four mask-head lugs in applied relief round the shoulder, short neck, straight foot and glazed base. The low, domed cover, which does not belong to this jar, has a pointed button knob.

Painted round the sides is a continuous landscape, with a cliff, a growing peony, a pair of large peafowl, a flowering tree and a pair of smaller birds. Round the foot is a lotus-petal panel border, and round the shoulder one of Y-diaper on a blue ground, interrupted by four cartouches with peach sprays; on the neck, a ‘classic scroll’ border, and on the cover, four flower-spray panels on a Y-diaper ground.

Text adapted from Chinese and Japanese Works of Art in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen: Volume I.