This elegant pear-shaped bottle (ping) stands near the beginning of the blue and white tradition. While not in an invention of the Yuan dynasty (1280-1368), underglaze, painted decoration in both blue and red was brought to an early stage of refinement during this period and Chinese ceramic art confidently entered its pictorial phase. Encircling the bottle is a spikey, three-clawed dragon painted in underglaze cobalt blue. In both the elegant shape of the bottle which evolved during the preceeding Sung dynasty, and the use of the dragon, this vessel is entirely in Chinese taste. It was during Yuan that the great middle eastern market was developed for blue and white ware and much of it, like the large plate shown above, was made to appeal to foreign rather than Chinese taste.