Blue and White Ginger Jar with Landscape Portraits

Long ago, ginger jars were used to store valuable spices and transport them from markets in the east to buyers in the west, hence their name. But, the containers have been collected mainly as decorative objects for the last 200 years when demand for Chinese antiques spurred exports to Europe. This beautiful jar was painted by hand in the Jiangxi region of China with painterly cobalt scenes of scholars in a garden with a Japanese pine.