J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York

This unusual design of peony blooms, each shown curled around itself, appears to be uniquely associated with Cizhou meiping of this form. Compare the painted Cizhou meiping of similar form painted with upright peonies around the sides in the Cleveland Museum of Art, illustrated by Mino and Tsiang, Freedom of Clay and Brush through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz’u-chou Type Wares, 960–1600 A.D., Indianapolis, 1980, p. 165, pl. 70, where the authors illustrate related meiping, also decorated with upright peony stems, in private Japanese collections (figs. 184–186).

Another meiping of stouter form similarly decorated with peony is in the Charles B. Hoyt Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics: The World’s Great Collections, Vol. 10, Tokyo, 1980, pl. 129, and another similarly painted Cizhou meiping of this same tall slender form is illustrated in the catalogue entitled Chugoku Bijutsu no Seika: Taihoku Koki Bijutsukan Shozohin Ten (Chinese Treasures from the Chang Foundation, Taipei), Tokyo, 2001, p. 40, no. 32.

The Chinese character for vase, ping, is a harmonic to the Chinese word for peace, and the peony in Chinese art symbolizes prosperity. A vase decorated with peony blooms such as the current example represents ping an fu gui, an auspicious wish for peace and prosperity.