Vase with figures

This shape, with a flaring mouth and a slightly slopping shoulder on a cylindrical belly, appeared in the first year of the last Qing emperor's reign (ZGMS Quanji 1988 vol. 3: pl. 235). A band of interlocking fungus is painted in willow green, moss green, and cerulean blue colors around the rim. Three elders with walking sticks, probably the three great philosophers—Confucius, Mencius, and Laozi—stand by a tea table made of tree roots on which a flower bottle and old bronzes have been placed. On the other side sits a person with a fan, cooking on a stove. The portraits were drawn with fluid line work but the colors lack the refinement and brightness of earlier periods.