A Blue and White Yongle Tankard

I have told you in my article—A Yongle Blue and White Dragon Moon Flask—in some detail about plaques in wares that are painted with the Sumali Blue dye. Now I am going to show you another Yongle Blue and White that also has a lot of plaques. But the plaques here have appearances that are quite different from the Moon Flask. To be sure, plaques in both of these two wares are beautiful. But it also proves my point that plaques have many faces, and we need to study them, and know them well, before we can be comfortable with ourselves when we deal with Blue and Whites of those eras.

It is a tankard that I am going to show you. It is rather small, measuring only 13.3 cm in height. It is not very rare, but I would not say that it is commonly seen either (Figure 1 and 2).

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