Jar with Design of Scrolling Lotuses and Peonies

This sturdy jar has a wide mouth and a stoneware body covered with a dark, lustrous brown glaze, with the sgraffito decoration of scrolling floral patterns in two broad horizontal registers. A special technique of ornamentation, sgraffito, involves cutting away the ground of glaze and exposing the ceramic body. Lotuses on the upper register and peonies on the lower register are separated from each other by a line of glaze. The decorative floral motifs on one side of the jar are large and highly stylized, while those on the opposite side are small, numerous, and more realistically rendered. The unglazed neck and bottom also show the gray color of the stoneware body.