"Right, let's look at these few crates first." Jiang Jiachang laughed as he opened a crate nearby.
This crate looked somewhat larger than the others, and it contained quite a few items, including a pair of blue-and-white lotus-seed-pod covered jars nearly thirty centimeters tall.
The pair of blue-and-white jars had lotus-seed finials, domed lids, flower-shaped rims, and recessed mouths. The jars had tall, straight necks, sloping shoulders, bulging curved bodies shaped like knotted melons, gradually narrowing lower bodies, tall straight feet with flared edges, flat bases, and recessed ring feet.
Chu Chen picked up one of them and examined it carefully. He found that it had a hard, white body covered in a milky white glaze. The inner rim of the lid and the inner rim of the jar had exposed white, fine-grained sandy clay. The lid, neck, and foot were decorated with subtle reliefs. The blue-and-white painted designs had a bluish tone tinged with gray.
The finial was painted with two layers of lotus-seed patterns. The lid had three layers of decoration: lotus-seed patterns on the upper and lower layers, and leaf-shaped panels containing branch-and-leaf designs in the middle. The neck had two layers of decoration, consisting of branch-and-flower patterns and borders of branch-and-lotus designs in leaf-shaped panels. The body had three layers of decoration, with borders of branch-and-lotus designs in leaf-shaped panels on the upper and lower layers, and branch-and-flower patterns as the central theme. The foot had four layers of decoration: crossbar-and-net patterns, leaf-petal patterns, leaf-tip patterns, and concentric-circle borders.
Generally speaking, Ming and Qing sea-recovered porcelain had been fired by local kilns in the Porcelain Capital and coastal regions. Although it could not compare with porcelain from the Ming and Qing Official Kiln, it had come from shipwrecks and therefore possessed a clear historical background. Its