brush-rest BM-PDF-A.642

Period:Ming dynasty Production date:1506-1521
Materials:porcelain
Technique:underglazed

Dimensions:Width: 197 millimetres

Description:
Porcelain brush-rest in form of five-peaked mountain. Underglaze blue with dense classic scrolls and a single roundel with Arabic inscription on each side. There is an inscription on the base.
IMG


Comments:Room 95 label text:PDF A642Brush rest with Arabic inscriptionThis thickly-potted brush rest is in a traditional Chinese form of a mountain range with five peaks. The inscriptions on either side are written in cursive Arabic script. They translate ‘The pen before everything’. Zhengde desk porcelains with Arabic inscriptions were made for the court either for Muslim administrators and eunuchs who held considerable power at the time or for the Zhengde emperor himself who was fascinated by foreign scripts and was rumoured to have converted to Islam, a fact unrecorded in the Ming official histories. There is a six character underglaze blue Zhengde mark on the base.Porcelain with underglaze cobalt-blue decorationJingdezhen, Jiangxi province 江西省, 景德鎮Ming dynasty, Zhengde mark and period, AD 1506–21 PDF A642阿拉伯文筆架這件筆架胎體厚重，形似中國傳統的山脈表現方式，有五峰。筆山兩面都有草體書寫的阿拉伯文，翻譯為“筆在萬物先”。為宮廷製造的帶阿拉伯銘文的正德官窯書房用瓷器，既可能是為當時大權在握的穆斯林政務人員及太監所製，也可能是正德皇帝本人所製，因其謎於外國文字，有傳他改宗伊斯蘭教，盡管明代官方歷史中未記此事。外底署青花六字正德年款。瓷器，青花江西省景德鎮明代，正德，正德款，1506-1521年