Further images
The inverted baluster body rising from a slightly splayed foot to a short straight neck, painted in shades of underglaze blue with a continuous scene around the vase showing a robed official holding a sceptre, standing in a fenced garden, between two younger boys, the boy to the right, dressed in a short robe and trousers, holding a fan, the boy to the left dressed in a long robe with wide arms holding up three halberds representing the Chinese rebus ‘pingsheng sanji’, meaning ‘may you rise three ranks at a time’, scrolling clouds, branches, plantains and rocks close to the scene, narrow bands painted around the shoulder and above the foot, the base glazed and inscribed in the centre with a four-character commendation mark in underglaze blue.
Literature
For a bottle vase with a similar decoration of the Chinese rebus ‘pingsheng sanji’ see Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Christiaan J.A. Jörg in collaboration with Jan van Campen, published by Phillip Wilson and the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, London and Amsterdam, 1997, p 76, pl. 63.
