Ba Xian, Pa Hsien or Eight Immortals are lucky symbols from Taoist Chinese mythology. They are not gods, although they are often regarded as such. Li Tieguai : body of a crippled beggar who had died of starvation. Laozi gave him an iron crutch to help him walk. Li Tie-guai usually carries a bottle on his back, filled with herbs with which he can heal people. Zhong-li Quan : Zhong-li was bald, thick and had a long beard. In representations he has a fan of feathers or palm leaves. Lü Dongbin : Lu Dong-bin is the most famous of the Immortals. He developed the Tao and vowed to help people as much as possible. Lu was a great martial artist, a good poet, and he loved wine. Han Xiang : Han is depicted with a peach and a flute, sometimes with a bouquet of flowers. Han Xiang-zi usually looks like a friendly young student, holding a long bamboo flute in his hand. Cao Guojiu : Cao got a gold medal that allows to overcome all obstacles. He wears an official robe, and holds yinyang planks of jade in his hands. Zhang Guolao : He is depicted with the peaches of immortality and a bag. He had supernatural powers He Xiang : She is depicted with a lotus flower in her hand. Heh Xian-gu is the only woman of the 8 Immortals. Lan Caihe : He is depicted with a fruit basket and flowers. On display is an exceptional Chinese porcelain vase, exquisitely hand-decorated with a blue and white decor. The broad short round base is unpainted and spreads out at an acute angle into a wider cylindrical corpus. Almost the entire surface, with the exception of the base and edge, is in blue underglaze, on a milky white ground, painted with water waves between which an immortal (total of 8) is brushed in a darker cobalt blue. The rounded shoulders are painted with a grid pattern with three geometric motifs in between. They end in a short conical neck with blue vertical bands between which T-shaped motifs. At the very top there is a narrow frieze of stripes. The neck ends in a discreetly spreading thickened white rounded edge. At the bottom we see a beautiful overglaze hand-drawn mark consisting of four characters in the center. The mark stands for an apocryphal four-character Chien Lung mark, but the vase is therefore later. The vase can be dated to the end of the 19th century, Guangxu imperial period. Top work!

Condition: pristine.