A meiping vase with broad rounded shoulders, a waisted lower body, a slightly flared foot and a short neck with a rolled rim. The decoration is painted in underglaze copper red: a single dragon with a finely scaled body coils round the vase, its head turned with open jaws and tongue showing, its mane streaming back. Clouds with trailing tails, tufts of flame and small dots are scattered round it from the shoulder down to the foot. The red fires from a soft reddish brown to darker tones, with grey-black spots where it gathered thickly, under a white glaze with an overall crackle.
The foot and the flat base are unglazed, the base fired to a pinkish buff. There is a maker's fault: the neck seems to have been knocked while the clay was drying, leaving it slightly out of shape, and the body differs in texture towards the neck. We attribute the vase to the Ming dynasty.
Learn more: The Ming Dynasty
