A rare double-gourd 'phoenix' wall vase mark and period of Wanli

of well potted bulbous form, vibrantly enamelled in colours of the wucai palette, the top bulb freely painted with two phoenix flying amid cloud scrolls below a pendant leaf border at the rim, the waist with ruyi-head and lingzhi borders, the lower bulb with an opposing pair of pheonix standing amid peonies and rockwork beneath seven smaller birds flying above, above a classic scroll on the flared foot, the reverse with a six-character mark in underglaze-blue within a double rectangle between a lotus flower and leaf

A similar wucai wall vase, in the Tianjin City Art Museum, is illustrated in Zhongguo taoci quanji, vol. 13, Shanghai, 2000, pl. 110;  another in the Baur Collection is published in John Ayers, The Baur Collection, vol.2, Geneva, 1969, pl. A 201; and a third, in the Dresden Porzellansammlung, is included in E. Zimmerman, Chinesisches Porzellan, Leipzig, 1923, pl. 66.

Compare also a vase of this form, from the Jingguantang collection, illustrated in Regina Krahl, 'The T.T. Tsui Collection of Chinese Ceramics', Orientations, December 1989, p. 41, fig. 19 right, together with a blue and white wall vase of similar shape but figural decoration, fig. 19 left.