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Subject:Re: Chinese Jar
Posted By: Bill H Sat, Nov 17, 2012
Your ginger jar has a pattern similar to the "sweetpea scroll", a design found on many Chinese porcelains made in the 19th century for domestic use as well as export to Straits Chinese and other markets in Southeast Asia. It may be that your jar is an early one, but the "age" reflected in the color around its mouth is an effect easily and often simulated by rubbing the porous biscuit with oily sludge. Also, information on the character of the foot goes lacking in your photos, and makes me hesitant to guess at an age.
Something worth keeping in mind is how the requirement for antique-style porcelain jars to use as containers for preserved ginger has continued to present times. The motif I've encountered most often on modern jars is the "cracked ice & prunus" pattern on a cobalt ground. However, in recent years I've also run across the sweetpea scroll on a variety of Chinese dishes that I believe undoubtedly are of the contemporary era.
For comparison, please see three photos attached herewith of a type of late 19th century pot that I believe is called "kamcheng" in Straits Chinese communities and which in this case was collected in Burma during the early 1980's. Its rendition of the sweetpea scroll is substantially different from the one on your jar, having longer droops of the vine swirling out and away from the flower. The double lines circling the base of the pot beneath the motif are fairly thick, whereas on your jar they are more pencil-thin and sometimes broken. Also, your jar seems almost to be too neat and regular in its painting style, as if made for decorative and not actual use, which point might belie the dirt seen around the mouth. In any event, there are enough questions raised to suggest a possible latter-day date for your jar, though more detailed information could lead to a more certain conclusion.
Best regards,
Bill H.
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Chinese Jar 
( China & Japan ) - BILAL - Nov 16, 2012 (12:43 PM) 
