In 1978, the Japanese version of People’s China published an article about the discovery of a Yuan Dynasty blue and white porcelain in Liaoning Province, arousing the widespread attention of collectors at home and abroad. Soon, this piece of porcelain was officially recognized by the national department of cultural relics as the first Yuan Dynasty blue and white porcelain preserved privately and then collected by the state since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Yang Yongsheng from Shenyang, a man with a breadth of vision, discovered and collected this porcelain, a valuable cultural relic lost to the folk. He found it at a cultural relic purchase station in Anshan in 1976. After careful study, he named it “blue and white octagonal jar with pine tree, bamboo and plum blossom design”.

This jar is an octahedron in blue and white glaze. It is large and thick, with five layers of blue and white decorative patterns covering the entire body. The middles of the eight sides are painted with pine tree, bamboo, plum blosso and waterfowl in a lotus pond. The lines are dense, the texture is crystal, and the patterns are vivid. The blue glaze has a purple tint, which is soft and elegant, with extraordinary charm.

Today, over 300 pieces of Yuan Dynasty blue and white porcelain have been acknowledged and are housed in a number of the world’s major museums, mostly as collection highlights. However, there are only two blue and white octagonal jars in existence: one was found in Anshan of Liaoning, while the other was unearthed in Thailand.

Many of the Yuan Dynasty blue and white porcelain pieces collected in China are in fragments, such as the phoenix-head pot and the porcelain jar featuring the story of Zhaojun departing the frontier stored at the Capital Museum of China, the deer-patterned blue and white plate housed at Qingzhou Museum of Shandong, and the elephant-eared vase with folded branch and floral design featured at Anhui Provincial Museum. In contrast, the Yuan Dynasty blue and white octagonal jar with patterns of pine tree, bamboo, and plum blossom collected at Liaoning Provincial Museum is intact, making it invaluable.

Blue and white porcelain first appeared during the Tang Dynasty, but its quality was quite poor. The technique of making blue and white porcelain was developed throughout the Five Dynasties, as well as during the Song, Liao and Jin Dynasties. However, it wasn’t until Yuan Dynasty that the production of blue and white porcelain achieved a qualitative breakthrough. This was due to the Mongolian royal family’s fascination with the combination of blue and white.

Yuan Dynasty blue and white porcelain pieces were made exclusively for royal family and were national treasures. They were often given as gifts to foreign states. The artists who painted on blue and white porcelain were mostly first-class craftsmen. The special material used to craft Yuan Dynasty blue and white porcelain was called Su Ma Li Qing, which was imported from Persia. This material was so rare that it had gradually started becoming extinct from the reign of the Emperor Zhizheng during the Yuan Dynasty until the reign of the Emperor Xuande during the Ming Dynasty.

This blue and white octagonal jar with pinetree, bamboo, and plum blossom design is an exceptionally well-preserved example of the Yuan Dynasty blue and white porcelain. It is considered to be a national treasure handed down from ancient times. It fills the gap in identifying other specimens of Yuan Dynasty blue and white porcelain in China. Its epochal significance extends to research, time determination, identification and other fields related to Chinese ceramics.