A rare blue and white jar for the Portuguese market, Ming dynasty, circa 1610-30 | 明約1610-30年 外銷青花花卉人面紋小罐

Compare an example in the Franks Collection at the British Museum, and illustrated in Jessica Harrison-Hall, Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, cat. no. 12.:61. Harrison-Hall notes that jars of this type may have been made for the Portuguese Jesuits. Another example is illustrated in Maria Antónia Pinto de Matos, The RA collection of Chinese Ceramics: A Collector's Vision, London, 2011, vol. I, cat. no. 73, where the author notes that the association of grapes and angels depicted on the present work indicates a Eucharistic connection, and that the form likely derived from a European metal or gold prototype and used in a church service as a decorative object.