A BEIGE GLAZED CERAMIC VASE China, Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). The pear-shaped body raised on a splayed cylindrical foot, the neck with a dish-shaped rim, the shoulders applied with twin mask handles, the body molded with a frieze containing dragons chasing the flaming pearl. Covered with a pale beige glaze suffused with fine crackles and stopping short above the foot to reveal the buff ware.

Condition: Good condition with some glaze flakes and firing irregularities such as pitting.
Provenance: Collection of Prof. Dr. F.K.D. Bosch. Dr. Koos de Jong, acquired from the above at Algemene Ethnografica- en Kunsthandel Aalderink b.v., Amsterdam in 1996 (invoice not available). Dr. de Jong is a Dutch art historian and has been privately collecting Chinese art over decades. He has authored hundreds of articles and several books on Dutch fine and decorative arts spanning from the Middle Ages to the modern era. In 2013, he published an extensive study of Chinese riding gear in “Dragon & Horse, Saddle Rugs and Other Horse Tack from China and Beyond”. Between 1976 and 2009 he worked for numerous museums across the Netherlands and was the director of the European Ceramic Work Center in Den Bosch.

Weight: 613.1 g
Dimensions: Height 22.7 cm

Note that these kinds of vases were usually used as funerary gifts so called ‘Mingqi’ (translated as spirit goods). Mingqi worked in concert with other tomb objects and architecture to support a larger funerary agenda, the goal of which was to comfort and satisfy the deceased.

Literature comparison: Compare a related vase in ‘Chinese Ceramics. Song Yuan Dynasty’, Taipei 1997, p. 362 and He Li, ‘Chinese Ceramics’, London 1996, p. 178, ill. 372.