Beschreibung:

AN IMPORTANT AND EXTREMELY RARE LONGQUAN CELADON 'FOUR SCHOLARLY ACCOMPLISHMENTS' JAR AND COVER YUAN DYNASTY robustly potted with a baluster body, rising from a stepped foot to a wide straight neck, the exterior deftly decorated in high relief enhanced by detailed carving, with scenes of ladies amongst elaborate interiors engaged in various literati pursuits, one depicting a lady holding a ruyi sceptre looking back at a female attendant carrying a qin, another with a lady and her attendant standing before a table laden with scroll paintings, the third with two seated ladies reading beside a standing attendant, and the last with two ladies engaged in a game of weiqi flanked by two attendants holding a fan and a covered vessel respectively, each scene masterfully divided by trees and leafy plantain issuing from rockwork forming a continuous painterly representation of the 'four accomplishments', all above slender upright lappets just above the foot and below a trellis border at the rim, covered overall in a thick celadon glaze of sea-green tone, pooling to a deeper tone at the recesses, save for the unglazed mouthrim and neatly trimmed wedge-shaped foot fired to burnt orange, the domed cover with a scalloped rim, similarly decorated in high relief with ten shaped roundels enclosing precious objects below a band of pendent ruyi heads, all divided by rows of raised floret bosses and surmounted by a Buddhist lion finial overall height 39.3 cm, 15 1/2 in., width 31 cm, 12 1/4 in.