Jingdezhen Hand-Painted Guiguzi Narrative Jar in Yuan Style

In the Yuan story represented here, Guiguzi leaves his mountain retreat after the envoy Su Dai asks him to intervene in a military crisis and help free captives from Qi. He rides in a two-wheeled cart drawn by a tiger and a leopard, while soldiers, horsemen, banners, trees, and rocky ground turn the broad body into a continuous narrative rather than a decorative repeat.

The scene became internationally known through the mid-14th-century Yuan blue-and-white Guiguzi jar sold by Christie's in London on 12 July 2005 for GBP 15,688,000, approximately USD $27.66 million at the time. That result reflected both the rarity of Yuan narrative jars and the ambition of painting a complex human story around porcelain.

At 27.5 cm high and 33 cm wide, this Jingdezhen jar matches the stated dimensions of the famous object and is presented as a full-scale 1:1 contemporary recreation by size. Its value lies in making that celebrated four-register narrative available as a hand-painted object that can be lived with and inspected from every side, from the advancing riders to the smallest trees, banners, and rock forms.

• Origin: Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, China
• Material: Porcelain
• Decoration: Hand-painted underglaze blue
• Motif: Guiguzi Descending the Mountain narrative scene
• Registers: Wave border, scrolling peony, narrative scene, and lotus-petal panels
• Dimensions: 27.5 cm H x 33 cm body diameter / 10.8 in H x 13.0 in body diameter
• Mouth opening: 21 cm / 8.3 in
• Base diameter: 20 cm / 7.9 in
• Object status: Full-scale 1:1 contemporary recreation by stated dimensions