Period:Ming dynasty Production date:1450-1500 (circa)
Materials:porcelain
Technique:celadon-glazed, impressed,
Dimensions:Diameter: 17.50 centimetres Height: 10.20 centimetres
Description:
Porcelain bowl with impressed design of figures with inscriptions beneath a green glaze. This bowl has high rounded sides, is heavily potted and stands on a straight foot ring. It is moulded with figures and inscriptions and covered with a thick dark olive-green glaze; the foot is glazed and the base unglazed. Six figures are impressed into the walls of the bowl in four scenes with brief Chinese-character narrative inscriptions; in the centre is an indistinct plant-design medallion and bordering the figures a ring of key-fret; a further key-fret band is around the outer rim of the bowl. The figural scenes show, anti-clockwise: a woman seated at a loom with the inscription ‘Zhou shi nu’ [Mme Zhou]; two officials facing one another, wearing hats with wings and round-necked civilian robes, pointing to a flag post with an inscription between them which reads ‘Liu guo cheng xiang’ [Premier of Six Kingdoms]; a man seated at a desk examining the pages of a book with the inscription ‘Su Qin du gu shu’ [Su Qin reads the classics]; a man raising his right hand and pointing to a woman who conceals her hands in her sleeves which are held across her waist – the inscription between them reads ‘Su Da Shu’ [Uncle Su].
IMG
![图片[1]-bowl BM-1927-0714.2-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Ming dynasty/Ceramics/mid_00273108_001.jpg)
![图片[2]-bowl BM-1927-0714.2-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Ming dynasty/Ceramics/mid_00273513_001.jpg)
Comments:Harrison-Hall 2001:This bowl tells the story of Su Qin (died 317 BC). He was a native of Luoyang who was repulsed when first he attempted to join the Qin state and had to return home in rags. ‘His wife would not spin for him; his sister-in-law would not cook for him; and his very parents disowned him’. He then studied the Daoist “Yin Fu Sutra”, stabbing his leg to keep himself awake. He federated the six states as a means of opposing the state of Qin. He became a celebrated leader in the Warring States period. Later he returned to Luoyang and forgave all his former critics.A bowl of this type was unearthed in 1982 in the tomb of the scholar Wang Zhen (1424-95) and his wife Mme Liu (1425-1503) in Huai’an, Jiangxi province. This elderly couple, who died at the ages of seventy-two and seventy-nine respectively, were buried individually with the man on the left and the woman on the right. Wang Zhen’s tomb contained twenty-five Ming paintings and examples of calligraphy, clothes and textiles, two bamboo-strip baskets, a pottery jar, a bowl of the present type, a green-glazed lotus-petal bowl, bamboo chopsticks, five gold token coins, one gold earring and two wooden beads. A further example of the present type of bowl was discovered in the ruins of Saya Castle, Komatsu-shi, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan, built in the sixteenth century, and it is now in the Tokyo National Museum. Such bowls are called “Ningyo’ude” bowls in Japan because of their figural decoration.Several other examples of this type of bowl, with different impressed figural designs and captions, are known. Two are ln the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; and one is in each of the following collections: the British Museum (BM 1973.0726.327); the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Barlow Collection, Sussex University; the Copenhagen Kinesisk Kunstindustrimuseet; the Princessehof Museum, Leeuwarden; the Baur Collection, Geneva; the Buffalo Museum of Science, New York state; the Lee Kong Chian Museum, National University of Singapore; and the private South-east Asian collection of Mr and Mrs D. Robinson.More than seventy years ago Hobson suggested that bowls of this type were made in Jiangsu or Anhui, but we now know from recent work by the Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relics Office that they were in fact made at Longquan. An example of this type of bowl with different inscriptions and figures is in the Longquan Qingci Museum, Zhejiang province.
Materials:porcelain
Technique:celadon-glazed, impressed,
Dimensions:Diameter: 17.50 centimetres Height: 10.20 centimetres
Description:
Porcelain bowl with impressed design of figures with inscriptions beneath a green glaze. This bowl has high rounded sides, is heavily potted and stands on a straight foot ring. It is moulded with figures and inscriptions and covered with a thick dark olive-green glaze; the foot is glazed and the base unglazed. Six figures are impressed into the walls of the bowl in four scenes with brief Chinese-character narrative inscriptions; in the centre is an indistinct plant-design medallion and bordering the figures a ring of key-fret; a further key-fret band is around the outer rim of the bowl. The figural scenes show, anti-clockwise: a woman seated at a loom with the inscription ‘Zhou shi nu’ [Mme Zhou]; two officials facing one another, wearing hats with wings and round-necked civilian robes, pointing to a flag post with an inscription between them which reads ‘Liu guo cheng xiang’ [Premier of Six Kingdoms]; a man seated at a desk examining the pages of a book with the inscription ‘Su Qin du gu shu’ [Su Qin reads the classics]; a man raising his right hand and pointing to a woman who conceals her hands in her sleeves which are held across her waist – the inscription between them reads ‘Su Da Shu’ [Uncle Su].
IMG
Comments:Harrison-Hall 2001:This bowl tells the story of Su Qin (died 317 BC). He was a native of Luoyang who was repulsed when first he attempted to join the Qin state and had to return home in rags. ‘His wife would not spin for him; his sister-in-law would not cook for him; and his very parents disowned him’. He then studied the Daoist “Yin Fu Sutra”, stabbing his leg to keep himself awake. He federated the six states as a means of opposing the state of Qin. He became a celebrated leader in the Warring States period. Later he returned to Luoyang and forgave all his former critics.A bowl of this type was unearthed in 1982 in the tomb of the scholar Wang Zhen (1424-95) and his wife Mme Liu (1425-1503) in Huai’an, Jiangxi province. This elderly couple, who died at the ages of seventy-two and seventy-nine respectively, were buried individually with the man on the left and the woman on the right. Wang Zhen’s tomb contained twenty-five Ming paintings and examples of calligraphy, clothes and textiles, two bamboo-strip baskets, a pottery jar, a bowl of the present type, a green-glazed lotus-petal bowl, bamboo chopsticks, five gold token coins, one gold earring and two wooden beads. A further example of the present type of bowl was discovered in the ruins of Saya Castle, Komatsu-shi, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan, built in the sixteenth century, and it is now in the Tokyo National Museum. Such bowls are called “Ningyo’ude” bowls in Japan because of their figural decoration.Several other examples of this type of bowl, with different impressed figural designs and captions, are known. Two are ln the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; and one is in each of the following collections: the British Museum (BM 1973.0726.327); the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Barlow Collection, Sussex University; the Copenhagen Kinesisk Kunstindustrimuseet; the Princessehof Museum, Leeuwarden; the Baur Collection, Geneva; the Buffalo Museum of Science, New York state; the Lee Kong Chian Museum, National University of Singapore; and the private South-east Asian collection of Mr and Mrs D. Robinson.More than seventy years ago Hobson suggested that bowls of this type were made in Jiangsu or Anhui, but we now know from recent work by the Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relics Office that they were in fact made at Longquan. An example of this type of bowl with different inscriptions and figures is in the Longquan Qingci Museum, Zhejiang province.
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