Vase with floral scrolls, one of a pair

Only a few vases of this type exist. Painted with four lotus panels around the neck, the body is decorated with two floral sprays—a lotus and a peony side by side. The underglaze-copper-red on this beige-colored porcelain ware turned purple with firing. One such work at the Beijing Municipal Museum combines incising with painting for its floral patterns (Shoudu Mus. 1991: pl. 68). Another at the Shanghai Museum converted the motif to a phoenix in the same two-storied arrangement (Shanghai Mus. 1987: pl. 28). These pieces, all in dark colors and with rough painting, resulted from the inexperience of potters working the underglaze-copper-red production technique at the jingdezhen kiln in Jiangxi.