Flattened baluster shape with handles and a square rim. Height 15.5 cm.
Wear.
Two slip-decorated brown-ground 'garlic mouth’ vases with similarly-rendered plants in the British Museum, are illustrated by J. Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, p. 34, pls. II:188 and II:189, where they are dated Ming dynasty, c. 1573-1620. The author notes that this combination of toffee-brown ground with contrasting white decoration was first introduced in the Wanli period, and that shards of this type dating to the late Ming era have been excavated at Zhushan in Jingdezhen.
See several examples from the Franks collection in the British museum, for example Registration number
Franks.98.
In China, this combination of a toffee-brown ground and contrasting white slip decoration was introduced in the Wanli period. Painting in slip on a monochrome ground was a technique also popular in the Near East, at Kirman in Iran, in the seventeenth century.