Of baluster form, brightly decorated in underglaze blue with a continuous garden scene with two exquisitely modelled birds, the first perched on a thorny branch gazing back at the second perched amidst flowering camellia sprays springing from stylized rock work; a third bird darting below stylized clouds above a finely drawn spray of leaves, with four insects flying about, the scene bordered at the base with a band of pendant plantain leaves, alternating taller with smaller, within two borders of double blue lines, the shoulder with a border of richly decorated pendant "ju - i" heads, their centres decorated with a single flowerhead and scrolling tendrils, white on a blue ground, the straight neck with a collar of castellated lappets.
Literature
For similar examples, see Anita Gray "A Catalogue of Oriental Ceramics and Works of Art (3)", page 27, plates 20a, 20b, 20c. See also Carswell "Blue and White Chinese Porcelain and its Impact on the Western World", University of Chicago, 1985, plate 61a, cf a similar blue and white baluster jar and cover painted with flowers from the Hatcher wreck, now in the David and Alfred Smart Gallery, University of Chicago, Gift of the Smart Gallery Vienna Tour, 1985.
