In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Chinese decorative arts were popular among Europe’s wealthy and elite. In the West, porcelain vessels like this are called "ginger jars" because they were often imported containing ginger. Blue and white china was collected by artists James McNeill Whistler and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. A similar jar appears in Whistler’s painting Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks (1864). The "cracked ice" pattern is clearly visible just below the neck of the jar.

© Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Pattern: 
Ginger Jar
Maker: 
Maker unidentified
Circa
1662
1722
Made in
Jingdezhen
China
9
7.875
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
C.836&A-1910