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Heavily potted jar of ovoid form with a curved neck and a thickened rim. The base with the four-character mark of Jiajing, carved under the glaze and partly concealed by green enamel. The decoration outlined in red and filled in with red, yellow and green. On the sides in a freeze nine mounted figures near an open gate in a city wall labelled ying men guan (powerful protected gate). The scene framed above and below by stylized leaf-bands and a wide border of quatrefoil medallions with sprays, reserved against a trellis diaper. Pointed leaves above a lotus and leaf border at the neck. The foot with lappets.
This finely painted scene is an example of decoration in polychrome enamels where red and green are the dominant colours. A procession of men and one woman is depicted riding towards a gate in a city wall. One man holds a ragged banner, the woman is protected from the heat by two other men with large fans and she and her horse are painted in such a way that they almost overlap another horse with a man on it. Two other men are riding with their banners folded. It could be a scene from the San guo zhi yenyi, the 'History of the Three Kingdoms', a famous historical roman written in the 14th century. An episode from this book, albeit much more violent, appears on a similar jar in the Musée Guimet in Paris. The smudge of green enamel on the mark is regarded as an attempt to disguise an imperial object.
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