MING DYNASTY, LATE 15TH CENTURY

The style of painting on this vase and others like it, commonly known as 'windswept', refers to the way in which the tabs of the scholar's cap and sash flutter in the breeze. All of these vases also have a similar treatment of the clouds and landscape details and have decorative borders above and below the main band. What may be an earlier example of this figural style can be seen in one panel of a mural that covers the walls of a tomb excavated at Wangshang in Dengfeng, Henan province, which has been dated to the Song or Jin period. See Wenwu, 1994:10, p. 6, fig. 3 (2nd from left on west wall) and col. pl. facing p. 17, which depicts two figures, with cap tabs, sashes and robe hems blown sideways by the wind. See the two meiping with similar decoration in the Shanghai Museum illustrated in Underglaze Blue and Red, Shanghai, 1987, pls. 73-74, and pp. 142-144.