Small blue and white jar

This is a small blue-and-white jar with a short and straight neck, short slanting shoulders, a bulging body tapering to the bottom, and a footring. The exterior of this jar is decorated with four registers of overglaze designs in red, green and yellow. The first register, adorned on the neck, is a band of red leaf-like patterns. Around the shoulders comes the second register, a band of floral sprays. The third and main register depicts colorful golden pheasants with stretching wings, alternated with big red peony sprays. On the bottom of the body is a band of adjoined green leaves and red leaf-like patterns. Both the interior and the bottom of the footring are finely white glazed. The peony, known as fu gui hua (the flower of wealth and rank), conveys a wish for official rank in the emperor's civil service as well as a salary and perquisites to ensure wealth. Generally depicted as yellow and red, the golden pheasant was embroidered on rank badges of civil officials in the Ming and Qing courts. It represented a second-rank civil official during the Qing period. The shape of this jar is similar to the model of the Daoguang jars. A glaze which appears exceedingly bright when observed against the light is representative of later copies, according to a book titled gu wan zhi nan (Guide of Chinese Antiques) written in 1942 by Zhao Ruzhen, a prestigious modern connoisseur. Therefore, this piece should be a recent copy, made during approximately the late 19th century to early 20th century