In Chinese Porcelains from the Ardbil Shrine, Pope illustrated an early 15th century jar, the prototype of the Qing example here offered, from the Freer Gallery Collection (54.117), and on p. 89 he refers to pharmaceutical jars of this shape being best known by the Spanish term "albarello". The pottery forerunners, he states, having been in circulation as early as the 11th century throughout the Near East, were taken to the West by the Moors to Spain, which, in turn, found expression in the maioloca produced in Italy.

Cf. a similar jar and cover sold in our New York Rooms, 2 December 1989, lot 356