Dragon Jar with Cover (One of a Pair)

Both this jar and its pair, 1965.8.165, are decorated with three clawed dragons chasing pearls in flames. Dragons were typically found exclusively on imperial commissions but on occasion may have been used to decorate non-imperial pieces such as these. As indicated by the mark painted on the bottoms of the jars, they were produced during the reign of Kangxi (1662–1722), an attribution further confirmed by the grayish color of the glaze and the typical Kangxi representation of dragons in three-quarter profile. In late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century China, such small objects—reduced versions of larger pieces—were often displayed on a Chinese scholar's desk.

Source: Vignon, Charlotte. The Frick Collection Decorative Arts Handbook. New York: The Frick Collection/Scala, 2015.