Period:Qing dynasty Production date:1660-1680 (circa)
Materials:porcelain
Technique:glazed, underglazed,
Subjects:flower
Dimensions:Height: 23.50 centimetres
Description:
Blue-and-white apothecary jar with a Latin inscription. The rounded body is waisted in the middle and is painted in underglaze blue with two large overall plants, drawn in a formalized manner derived from European rather than Chinese models, with confronted birds perched on the branches and small confronted animals on the ground below. This design is interrupted at the waist by two cartouches with cherub vignettes above, one side inscribed ‘THER.ES merag.’, an abbreviation for the Latin words “Theriaca Essentia Meraca”, the name of a medicinal drug, the other with further flower motifs.
IMG
![图片[1]-jar BM-1963-0422.6-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Qin dynasty/Ceramics/mid_00107730_001.jpg)
Comments:Harrison-Hall and Krahl 1994:Such drug jars, generally made of faience with blue-and-white or polychrome decoration, were in common use in 17th-century pharmacies throughout Europe, but go back to ancient Islamic models. They were sometimes painted with the drug they were meant to contain in dried form, or else with some unconnected floral design, and often with cherubs. The present piece once belonged to a larger set of identical jars with different inscriptions, of which three others are preserved, one in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Clunas, 1987, pl. 14); another from the Thornhill collection in the North Staffordshire Polytechnic, Stoke-on-Trent, Great Britain (Sun-Bailey, 1983 – 4, pl. 17); and the third in the Virginia Museum, Richmond, U.S.A. (Little, 1983, no. 52). It is not known how large the set originally was, nor for whom it was made. Both the Portuguese and the Dutch also exported the drugs themselves from China and it is not impossible that these drug jars might have been exported complete with contents; in general, the quantities of drugs exported were, however, much larger. Stylistically this jar appears to have been made during the tumultous times following the end of the Ming, when European trade with south China was difficult and sporadic and porcelain made specifically to Western orders is rare.
Materials:porcelain
Technique:glazed, underglazed,
Subjects:flower
Dimensions:Height: 23.50 centimetres
Description:
Blue-and-white apothecary jar with a Latin inscription. The rounded body is waisted in the middle and is painted in underglaze blue with two large overall plants, drawn in a formalized manner derived from European rather than Chinese models, with confronted birds perched on the branches and small confronted animals on the ground below. This design is interrupted at the waist by two cartouches with cherub vignettes above, one side inscribed ‘THER.ES merag.’, an abbreviation for the Latin words “Theriaca Essentia Meraca”, the name of a medicinal drug, the other with further flower motifs.
IMG
Comments:Harrison-Hall and Krahl 1994:Such drug jars, generally made of faience with blue-and-white or polychrome decoration, were in common use in 17th-century pharmacies throughout Europe, but go back to ancient Islamic models. They were sometimes painted with the drug they were meant to contain in dried form, or else with some unconnected floral design, and often with cherubs. The present piece once belonged to a larger set of identical jars with different inscriptions, of which three others are preserved, one in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Clunas, 1987, pl. 14); another from the Thornhill collection in the North Staffordshire Polytechnic, Stoke-on-Trent, Great Britain (Sun-Bailey, 1983 – 4, pl. 17); and the third in the Virginia Museum, Richmond, U.S.A. (Little, 1983, no. 52). It is not known how large the set originally was, nor for whom it was made. Both the Portuguese and the Dutch also exported the drugs themselves from China and it is not impossible that these drug jars might have been exported complete with contents; in general, the quantities of drugs exported were, however, much larger. Stylistically this jar appears to have been made during the tumultous times following the end of the Ming, when European trade with south China was difficult and sporadic and porcelain made specifically to Western orders is rare.
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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)
