Description:
This early Vietnamese guan-shaped lidded pot has a buff-beige body and is decorated with floral panels on the shoulder, a band of flower and leaf scrolls, and a lotus panel border motif at the bottom all in underglaze greyish-blue. The cover is decorated with floral sprigs and the base is sunken, unglazed and unmarked. The best known of the Annamese blue and white wares are related in both shape and design to the Chinese ceramics of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Annam was occupied by the Chinese from 1400 to 1428 and it was during these years that the influence of the Chinese blue and white wares exerted itself most strongly.