A fine and rare wucai 'dragon' brush handle mark and period of Wanli

the long cylindrical handle painted with a ferocious dragon in iron-red and underglaze-blue, its body writhing amid flowering leafy stems in colours of the wucai palette, between a ruyi  border at the brush end and band of pendant leaves at the terminal next to the six-character mark in underglaze-blue running down the shaft in a single column

A Wanli wucai vase of this square shape, similarly painted with sages in a garden setting, is illustrated in Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 14, Tokyo, 1976, fig. 209; and another related vase from the Edward T. Chow collection was sold in these rooms 19^th May 1981, lot 434. Compare also a vase published in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, vol. 1, Tokyo, 1976, pl. 928; and one in the Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo, included in Toji taikei, vol. 43, Tokyo, 1960, pl. 85.