Rare, Chinese 12th Century Yuan Dynasty Period, blue & white dragon porcelain censer. The Finest Chinese porcelain in censer shape, large, tall and thick censer, sturdily potted in a Xian shaped traditional form, outstanding globular body, slight short and narrow on the neck, with thick straight opening lip, emerge two sea-dragon shaped loop handles emerged from the shoulder toward the outer lip, and raised on three cabriole squat legs foot. All reserved hand painted ornamentations are rendered in clean white underglaze base color which contrast against the cobalt blue fine color. Blue and white porcelain in Chinese it is called Qing Hua Ci. It is the most important variety of China’s porcelain. It was originated in the Yuan Dynasty. Its color does not easily fade and durability is longer. It used cobaltous oxide as the colorant. Patterns were directly painted onto the inner body and burnt after glaze was applied on it. The main body and the three legs adorned with snarling huge imperial five claws dragon careening through cumulus clouds above thrashing Li-shui waves in a deep blue color dragon squama to chasing flaming pearl amidst flames. The shoulder and the upper mouth rim decorated with scrolling tendril and thrashing wavy Lishui water, banded and enclosed with double fine blue rings. And the neck festooned with big flowers blooms interspersed foliage. Dragon is the symbol of the Emperor, the Son of Heaven, eternity, Yang and Yin, male vigor and fecundity, the Li-shui wave pattern which is known to be the abode of dragons. A characteristic heaped and piled effect, the underglaze grayish-blue concentrates in certain areas, bubbling through the surface of the glaze and turning a deep blue-black. This inadvertently gave texture, energy, and shading to the design. The underside unglazed, revealed the pale-creme ground and dark grayish brown spotted firing marks and edge-cut foot rim. The mouth rim reveals the cut edges during the making process, and the base left unglazed with grayish creme-brown ground and dark spots of firing marks.Height:9.38 inWidth: 8.75 inDepth: 7.75 in