| The David Vases | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Year | 1351 |
| Type | Blue and white |
| Medium | Porcelain |
| Dimensions | 63.5 cm × 20.5 cm (25.0 in × 8.1 in) |
| Location | British Museum, London |
The David Vases are a pair of blue-and-white temple vases from the Yuan dynasty. The vases have been described as the "best-known porcelain vases in the world"[1] and among the most important blue-and-white Chinese porcelains.[2]
Though they are fine examples of their type, their special significance comes from the date in the inscriptions on the vases.[1] It made them the earliest-dated blue-and-white porcelains known at the time of their acquisition, although blue-and-white porcelains are likely to have been made earlier. The vases are named after Sir Percival David who collected the vases from two different sources, and form part of the collection of the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, now on display in the British Museum.
YouTube Encyclopedic
-
1/5Views:51 8903 7784427 9937 813
-
The David Vases
-
AP Art History - China and Korea (Part 2 of 2)
-
Vases & Madrona Burl
-
A failed experiment: Medici porcelain
-
Ancient Greek vases
Transcription
(piano playing) Dr. Zucker: On May 13th in 1351 two vases and an incense burner were dedicated to a Daoist temple in China. Dr. Harris: By a man who had these made specifically for this purpose and had his name, date, and the purpose of this dedication inscribed right on the vases themselves. These were an offering to this temple in honor of a General who had recently been made a God. Dr. Zucker: I love that we have all of this specific information. In our history, we so often have to guess the year and here we have the exact day. Dr. Harris: This is something rather familiar to us. We still make dedications, we still make offerings. Dr. Zucker: We've lost the incense burner, but we do have the two vases and now we're looking at them in the British Museum in London. Dr. Harris: Right, they're known as the David Vases, after Sir Percival David the collector who purchased them, amassed this amazing collection of about 1500 Chinese ceramics and brought these two vases, which belong together, back together again. Dr. Harris: They're fairly tall and they are an archetype of what we think of Chinese ceramics in the west. This is blue and white porcelain. Dr. Harris: Porcelain is a very specific kind of ceramic that's very lustrous. Dr. Zucker: It's made from a very pure kind of clay. We get the word porcelain from the Venetian explorer, Marco Polo who went to China during this very period. Apparently when he saw porcelain and it's hard white surface, he thought it looked like the inside of a seashell. The word porcelain is very close to the Italian word for a cowry shell. Dr. Harris: The deed is 1351, China was part of the vast Mongol Empire that stretched from China in the east to what we think of today as Eastern Europe. Dr. Zucker: So often we use the word China to refer, not to the country, but to porcelain material. That's because China produced an enormous amount of porcelain for export. What's interesting is that the Chinese produced products for export with the local markets that they were selling to in mind. Dr. Harris: In fact, we think about this kind of blue and white China as quintessentially Chinese, but as it turns out history is always a lot more complicated because at this point China was actually part of the Mongol Empire, also known as the Yuan Dynasty. Porcelain is white, but the blue is from a mineral called Cobalt from what is present day Iran. Dr. Zucker: The cobalt is painted on the white porcelain, which is this very pure clay and then the entire thing is covered with a clear glaze which helps to give it this great sense of luminosity. Dr. Harris: Then it's fired at very high temperature so it becomes like glass, unlike typical ceramics or earthen ware. Dr. Zucker: The Chinese had kilns that were technologically far advanced of anything in the west or even in the near east. Dr. Harris: While we might think about this as very Chinese this is actually the result of a global Mongol Empire and the interaction of China and Iran. Dr. Zucker: In fact, some scholars think that the blue and white motif itself was not only based on the material from Iran, but was based on the taste of the local markets in Iran and that these pots were made for export. Dr. Harris: Although in this case, it was made for a temple in China. Dr. Zucker: Near the principal production center for porcelain. Dr. Harris: So while we might think about blue and white China as from the period of the Ming dynasty, later than this, these vases help us to date blue and white porcelain to the period before the Ming dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty. Dr. Zucker: Let's take a look at the vases themselves. They're about two and a half feet tall and they're covered with motif's that we think of as typical for Chinese ceramics. Most prominently on both vases, right at the shoulder is a great dragon, the serpentine form. Dr. Harris: Then around the base we see a vine and floral motif. We see that again just above the dragon motif and again at the very top. Dr. Zucker: The neck of the vase is divided into two parts. The bottom part includes a phoenix and then the top part leaves, but interspersed between the leaves is the inscription that helps us date this to the Yuan Dynasty and specifically to May 13th. The handles are elephants and although this is ceramic the design seems to come from bronze ware. In a bronze vessel you'd normally have a ring that hangs down from the handle. You can see that there was probably a ring here originally, it was attached to the elephants trunk, you can see the break marks. So, these are not in perfect condition, although, they are in awfully good condition. Dr. Harris: Considering that they date from 1351. (piano playing)
Provenence
The vases are Jingdezhen porcelain, commissioned by someone named Zhang Wenjin (張文進) from Yushan County to be presented as altar pieces, alongside an incense burner that has not been found,[3] to a Daoist temple in Xingyuan (星源, present day Wuyuan County, Jiangxi) in 1351.[4] It has been proposed that the vases were manufactured at the Hengfeng Zhen kilns near the temple.[5] Long inscriptions were added to the vases, which gives their date of production.[2]
David acquired the vases from two separate sources; the first from Mountstuart Elphinstone in the 1920s, the second from an auction in 1935 of the collection of Charles E. Russell.[6] Russell was said to have acquired his vase from a Chinese collector Wu Lai-Hsi (吳賴熙, Wu Laixi), who in turn was claimed to have bought it from a priest of Zhilun temple in eastern Beijing, although this fact could not be verified.[7]
Descriptions
The shape of the vases is based on bronze vessels. They are painted in underglazed cobalt blue with images of a number of auspicious motifs. On the main body of each vase is painted a four-clawed dragon surrounded by clouds. Above is a band of lotus scroll, and on the neck are flying phoenixes, as well as a band of overlapping plantain leaves. Around the mouth is a chrysanthemum scroll, and at the foot is a peony scroll above petal panels containing various auspicious symbols.[2][8] On the neck are two elephant heads forming two handles. Originally, the vases had porcelain rings suspended from the handles.[4] There are a few small differences in decorations between the two vases, for example, the mouth of the dragon is closed in one but open in the other.[2]
Inscriptions
On the neck of the vases are inscribed dedications by Zhang. There are minor differences in inscriptions between the two vases, some characters have been changed in one inscription, but they have essentially the same meaning:[9][10]
信州路玉山縣順城鄉德教里荊塘社奉聖弟子張文進喜捨香炉花瓶一付祈保合家清吉子女平安 至正十一年四月良辰謹記 星源祖殿胡淨一元帥打供
The respectful disciple of the sages, Zhang Wenjin from Jintang Section of Dejiao Lane, Shungchen Village, Yushan County of Xingzhou Circuit, happily presents a set of incense burner and flower vases as prayer for the protection of the whole family and for peace and prosperity of his descendants. Recorded in reverent remembrance on a propitious day in the 11th year and 4th month of the Zhizheng era, as offering for the Xingyuan temple of Generalissimo Hujingyi.
The 11th year of the Zhizheng era dates the vases to 1351. The incense burner mentioned in the inscriptions has not been found. It has been noted that the inscriptions have miswritten characters and are not carefully spaced, therefore they could not have been written by a court official. The ability to commission expensive high quality porcelain from an official kiln, and the use of royal insignias of dragons and phoenixes but with substandard written inscriptions, raised question as to who Zhang Wenjin might have been. The vases were commissioned during a period of peasant revolts, and it has been speculated the name may have been an alias of the rebel Zhang Shicheng.[11]
Significance
Dating
The inscriptions on the vases that gives the dates are important for the much-discussed question of when the blue-and-white style was introduced. The date has been given as 1351 (11th year of the Zhizheng era), towards the end of the Yuan dynasty. According to the British Museum they are the earliest dated blue-and-white porcelains. The date suggests that the blue-and-white technique was already sophisticated enough by the late Yuan period for works of such quality to be produced. At the time they were collected by Percival David, the blue and white style was thought to have been invented during the next Ming dynasty, and the vases played a role in overturning that assumption and placing it under the Yuan dynasty. However, some scholars now push the date even further back, to the Song dynasty.[12] Isolated examples of blue-and-white ceramics from the Tang dynasty have also been found, for example, a blue and white stoneware plate with floral motif (cobalt-blue pigment over white slip), manufactured in kilns in Gongxian, Henan, was found in the Belitung shipwreck, dated ca. 825–850 during the Tang dynasty.[13][14]
Blue and white standard
As the only firmly dated Yuan dynasty porcelains for many years, the vases have been considered as "one of the main cornerstones in the chronology of blue and white", and "linchpin in studies of the development of Chinese ceramics with underglaze blue decorations",[15] and the standard by which all other Yuan dynasty blue-and-white pieces may be compared. However, it is also argued that the pieces were produced in a period of upheaval and instability in the closing years of the Yuan dynasty, therefore should only be considered as representative of Yuan blue-and-white at its ebb. High quality Yuan porcelain from officially-controlled kilns have since been found.[16]
It was believed that early blue-and-white ware was produced only for export, and that blue-and-white was denigrated in China before it gained acceptance. The early Ming work Gegu Yaolun (格古要論) described blue and multi-coloured ware as "exceedingly vulgar". However, the David vases showed that blue-and-white porcelains were produced for local consumption during the Yuan dynasty, and more Yuan blue-and-white wares have since been uncovered.[17]
Media
The vases are listed in the BBC programme A History of the World in 100 Objects.[1]
References
- ^ a b c "A History of the World in 100 Objects". BBC.
- ^ a b c d Scott, Rosemary (1989). Imperial Taste: Chinese Ceramics from the Percival David Foundation. Chronicle Books. pp. 54–55. ISBN 9780877016168.
- ^ "The David Vases (Chinese porcelain)". Khan Academy. Retrieved 12 February 2024.
- ^ a b Krahl, Regina; Harrison-Hall, Jessica (2009). Chinese Ceramics: Highlights of the Sir Percival David Collection. British Museum. pp. 52–53. ISBN 9780714124544.
- ^ Kessler 2012, pp. 213, 225.
- ^ Wang, Audrey (July 2012). Chinese Antiquities: An Introduction to the Art Market. Lund Humphries Publishing. ISBN 9781409455455.
- ^ Kessler 2012, pp. 218–220.
- ^ Gerritsen, Anne (2020). The City of Blue and White. Cambridge University Press. pp. 107–120. ISBN 9781108499958.
- ^ Kessler 2012, pp. 213–221.
- ^ "altar-vase". British Museum.
- ^ Kessler 2012, pp. 221–226.
- ^ Kessler 2012, pp. 3.
- ^ Bekken, Deborah A.; Niziolek, Lisa C.; Feinman, Gary M. (1 February 2018). China: Visions through the Ages. University of Chicago Press. p. 274. ISBN 978-0-226-45617-1.
- ^ Kadoi, Yuka (31 July 2019). Islamic Chinoiserie: The Art of Mongol Iran. Edinburgh University Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-1-4744-6967-8.
- ^ Kessler 2012, pp. 213, 218.
- ^ Yaw, Lu; Lee, Kong Chian (1998). Lee Kong Chian Art Museum. Singapore University Press. p. 23. ISBN 9789971691554.
- ^ Kessler 2012, p. 253–254.
Bibliography
- Kessler, Adam T. (25 July 2012). Song Blue and White Porcelain on the Silk Road. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-23127-6.
| China |
|   | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Japan |
| |||||
| Korea |
| |||||
| Europe |
| |||||
| Technologies | ||||||
| People | ||||||
| Collections |
| |||||
This page was last edited on 2 April 2024, at 13:27