A blue and white 'dragon' jar mark and period of Jiajing

well potted with broad shoulders, rising to a short neck with lipped rim, boldly painted in vibrant shades of pale cobalt-blue with two five-clawed dragons chasing 'flaming pearls', their long sinuous bodies writhing amid clusters of swirling clouds, all below a band of pendant lotus petals at the shoulder and classic scroll at the neck, with rising lappets at the foot, the base with a six-character mark in underglaze-blue within a recessed circle     

Sotheby's London, 15th June 1982, lot 288.

Compare a covered jar of this pattern in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, illustrated in the Illustrated Catalogue of Ming Dynasty Porcelain, Gakkan, Japan, 1978,  pl. 1. See also a similar jar from the Hay Collection sold in our London rooms, 16th June 1939, lot 72; and another sold in our New York rooms, 4th December 1984, lot 325.