Prunus Vase with Blue-and-White Designs of Two Dragons Vying for a Pearl Made in Chongzhen’s Reign of Ming

This pair of prunus vases is majestic, dignified and upright in modeling. There are four layers of designs in total: the neck is designed with banana leaves; its shoulders are painted with four ruyi-shaped reserved panels with swastika brocade-ground, and inside the panels there are persimmons on plucked branches for the implication of "everything goes well"; the shin is painted with horses crossing the clouds. The belly is designed with the themed painting of two dragons contending for a pearl. In the clouds and flames, one dragon rises and one dragon descends. They roll up and down majestically and tread on cloud waves for snatching the pearl. The pearl, painted into a human face, is extremely distinctive. Such an imagery conception often appeared in the late Ming Dynasty.