Polychrome Jar with Egret and Lotus Designs and Golden Embellishment

The jar has a flared mouth-rim, long neck, sloping shoulders and a round body that contracts at the gradually widening base. As the jar is shaped like a phoenix’s tail, it is also called the “phoenix’s tail jar.” Around the mouth-rim and neck are two circles of wavy patterns. There is another circle of rectangular spiral and wavy patterns between the neck and shoulders. The entire jar is covered with white glaze with a picture of egrets and lotus pond painted over the glaze in red, yellow, green, blue, purple and golden colours. There are waterweed, duckweed and large lotus leaves on tender green stems, which seem to sway in the breeze. Among the red, purple and golden lotus flowers, in buds or in full bloom, are colourful butterflies and egrets. Painted realistically and in great detail, the whole picture presents a quiet and leisurely scene of a lotus pond in summer. Lotus are favoured by people for their graceful shape and because they “grow out of the mud but are unstained.” Many of the porcelain wares of the Ming and Qing periods are decorated with lotus flowers. The magnificence of this jar is enhanced by its beautiful shape, gorgeous colour and golden embellishment.