White porcelain vase elegantly decorated in underglaze blue with flowers and lotus within two bands, respectively decorated with stylized waves and petals. The meiping, literally "vase for the plum branch", is one of the most popular shape in the Chinese tradition. Historically, the flowered lotus spirals blue decoration against a white background reached its apex under the reign of Yongle (1402-1424) where it was often used to ornate meiping shaped vases. This vase is an example of this great Ming tradition which is a phenomenon occurred in China during the 18th century and later. The interest for the surviving Ming specimen was driven also to the random small imperfections in the precious blue pigment which was the result of a complex mixture of cobalt oxides of different origin. This recipe, governed by the emperor Yongle himself, was able to produce an unrepeatable shade of blue with violet hues and small darker spots due to the presence of iron oxide, the so-called "heaping and piling" effect, very evident in the porcelain of the Yuan period, but later replicated as a decorative effect. As a matter of fact, 18th century potters could not recreate this technique, which had been forgotten, thus simply imitate it whit dark and bright painted dots, as clearly visible in this vase.