File:Chinese - Beaker-Shaped Vase with Four Animals - Walters 491651 - Profile.jpg

English: The hold of the Ming [Ming] emperors gradually weakened in the first decades of the 17th century; this eventually led to the collapse of that dynasty and the creation of a new one, the Qing [Ch'ing], by the foreign-born Manchus. At the porcelain manufacturing center of Jingdezhen [Ching-te Chen], the decline of the empire meant opportunity in the form of newly opening foreign markets. Internal economic difficulties brought men with a broader knowledge of Chinese painting than had hitherto been the case, and the result was the production of a series of vessels, like this one, of unprecedented ambitiousness. On the body of the vase are a dragon and a tiger, on the neck, the unicorn (Qilin [Ch'i-lin]) and phoenix. The whites have a positive value; more than that, they are also pictorial, actually standing for the mists that hover in front of waterfalls. The relationship between neck and body is worked out in terms of white and blue areas; but the two parts compete for attention, and there is no ordinary hierarchy. A sophisticated, playful hand is at work, as is also suggested by the blurred edges- reminiscent of wet ink on paper- of the cloud around the dragon's head. If the tortoise had been shown rather than the tiger, the four creatures on this vase would constitute the "four miraculous creatures": one scaly, one shelled, one furry, and one feathered. Probably "yin" and "yang" polarities are more important here; the moist dragon is opposed to the dry tiger, and a male phoenix is paired with a female unicorn. Together they may allude to the ancient notion that the appearance of these creatures on earth is a sign of the rule of a just king. In the middle years of the 17th century, that would have been more of a hope than a reality.