A blue and white garden seat Ming Dynasty, Jiajing period

sturdily potted of barrel form, painted in varying shades of cobalt-blue to each side with a pair of confronting peacocks separated by rockwork issuing large peony blooms on rockwork, leafy stems amid bamboo and lingzhi sprigs, flanked by a pair of pierced lion-mask handles moulded in relief, each with curling mane formed by raised spirals, enclosed within a quatrelobed cartouche, all between borders of raised bosses, above a band of swelling waves crashing against rocks and cloud swirls at the foot, and below a border of floral sprays enclosed within pendant ruyi-shaped lappets divided by pendant beaded tassels, the convex top decorated with four lion cubs and two stylised ribboned brocade balls, surrounding a pierced stylised floret with trellis-work centre

A related garden seat, in the Shanghai Museum, is illustrated in Wang Qingzheng, Underglaze Blue and Red, Hong Kong, 1993, p. 231, fig. 5; and two others were sold in these rooms, 17^th May 1988, lot 135, and 17^th November 1975, lot 195.