Period:Ming dynasty Production date:1522-1620 (circa)
Materials:earthenware
Technique:glazed, moulded, cold painted,
Dimensions:Height: 148 centimetres Width: 36 centimetres Depth: 20 centimetres
Description:
Figure of an assistant to the Judge of Hell decorated in polychrome enamels with cold-painted details. In the same palette as BM 1917.1106.1 and possibly belonging to the same Hell tableau or to a similar group, this large-scale ceramic sculpture is in the form of a standing woman who holds a slim volume labelled 善 簿 ‘shan bu’ [Good Register]. Her face and hands with long fingernails are glazed creamy white, her hair is dressed into twin buns and she is elaborately adorned with gold earrings, hair ornaments and tiara with phoenix terminals and ribbons which hang down her back. Her robes are loose fitting, brightly coloured in turquoise, amber, cream, green, black and aubergine. They are layered with an under-robe of amber visible at the sleeves and have attached streamers with relief-moulded details. Her black shoes peep out from under her costume, turning up at the end with ‘ruyi’ tips to reveal a white cotton sole.
IMG
![图片[1]-figure BM-1938-0524.115-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Ming dynasty/43/mid_00220426_001.jpg)
![图片[2]-figure BM-1938-0524.115-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Ming dynasty/43/mid_RRC10673R.jpg)
![图片[3]-figure BM-1938-0524.115-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Ming dynasty/43/mid_RRC10673L.jpg)
Comments:Harrison-Hall 2001:A thirteenth-century artisan painting from the workshop of Lu Xinzhing depicting the Tenth Court of Hell is preserved in the Kotoin, Kyoto. It shows a similar female figure attending the Judge of the Tenth Court, together with smaller souls who offer up scrolls of meritorious deeds completed in their lifetime in the hope that this will spare them from further torture at the hands of the Judge’s eager demons. This figure generally appears only in the Tenth Court, where tortures are no longer performed.Five extant figures of seated Judges are decorated in a similar manner to the present attendant figure. Three of them are described as coming from the Louise Pierpont Morgan Collection, including one in the GBR Museum in Cavite, Philippines. The British Museum figure may have been one of the assistants to these seated Judges, which are all approximately 30 cm smaller. Thus the seated figures are in scale to the Museum’s standing figure. The ceramic figure was loaned by George Eumorfopoulos and displayed in 1913 at the City of Manchester Art Gallery as the ‘culminating point of the exhibition’ of Chinese applied art. This exhibition was one of the pioneering displays of Chinese art in the United Kingdom. ‘Bronzes, pottery, porcelains, jades, embroideries, carpets, enamels and lacquers’ were all included in a show organized by the then Lord Mayor, Sir Samuel Walter Royse, and his councillors and aldermen.
Materials:earthenware
Technique:glazed, moulded, cold painted,
Dimensions:Height: 148 centimetres Width: 36 centimetres Depth: 20 centimetres
Description:
Figure of an assistant to the Judge of Hell decorated in polychrome enamels with cold-painted details. In the same palette as BM 1917.1106.1 and possibly belonging to the same Hell tableau or to a similar group, this large-scale ceramic sculpture is in the form of a standing woman who holds a slim volume labelled 善 簿 ‘shan bu’ [Good Register]. Her face and hands with long fingernails are glazed creamy white, her hair is dressed into twin buns and she is elaborately adorned with gold earrings, hair ornaments and tiara with phoenix terminals and ribbons which hang down her back. Her robes are loose fitting, brightly coloured in turquoise, amber, cream, green, black and aubergine. They are layered with an under-robe of amber visible at the sleeves and have attached streamers with relief-moulded details. Her black shoes peep out from under her costume, turning up at the end with ‘ruyi’ tips to reveal a white cotton sole.
IMG
Comments:Harrison-Hall 2001:A thirteenth-century artisan painting from the workshop of Lu Xinzhing depicting the Tenth Court of Hell is preserved in the Kotoin, Kyoto. It shows a similar female figure attending the Judge of the Tenth Court, together with smaller souls who offer up scrolls of meritorious deeds completed in their lifetime in the hope that this will spare them from further torture at the hands of the Judge’s eager demons. This figure generally appears only in the Tenth Court, where tortures are no longer performed.Five extant figures of seated Judges are decorated in a similar manner to the present attendant figure. Three of them are described as coming from the Louise Pierpont Morgan Collection, including one in the GBR Museum in Cavite, Philippines. The British Museum figure may have been one of the assistants to these seated Judges, which are all approximately 30 cm smaller. Thus the seated figures are in scale to the Museum’s standing figure. The ceramic figure was loaned by George Eumorfopoulos and displayed in 1913 at the City of Manchester Art Gallery as the ‘culminating point of the exhibition’ of Chinese applied art. This exhibition was one of the pioneering displays of Chinese art in the United Kingdom. ‘Bronzes, pottery, porcelains, jades, embroideries, carpets, enamels and lacquers’ were all included in a show organized by the then Lord Mayor, Sir Samuel Walter Royse, and his councillors and aldermen.
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![[Qing Dynasty] British female painter—Elizabeth Keith, using woodblock prints to record China from the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China—1915-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/image-191x300.png)
