Reviving the Past: Antiquity & Antiquarianism in East Asian Art

Reviving the Past | The Boundaries of Heaven | An Elegant Gathering Circuits of Exchange

Mass production of blue-and-white porcelain began sometime in the fourteenth century in Jingdezhen, China, and grew steadily in popularity over the next few centuries. The “blue” refers to the cobalt-derived under-glazing used to decorate the pristine “white” porcelain body. Eventually, global demand for blue-and-white stimulated an immense network of international trade that linked Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Southeast Asia together in a complex “circuit of exchange.” The objects in this case, drawn entirely from the Spencer’s permanent collection, explore the wide variety of decorative styles and vessel shapes created by ceramic artists across the greater Eurasian landmass.

Highly prized in Europe, Kakiemon was extremely influential in Europe. Decoration is usually of high quality, with delicate and asymmetric, yet well-balanced, designs as seen in the assemblage of seashells on this small plate. Decoration was sparsely applied to emphasize the fine white porcelain background body known in Japan as nigoshide (milky white).

The Qing emperors, especially the long-lived Emperor Qianlong, readily employed Buddhist symbolic language as adornment on a whole range of objects associated the court. This small bowl is decorated with the so-called eight auspicious symbols of Buddhism: the canopy, the conch shell, the sacred vase, the royal umbrella, the wheel of the law, the endless knot, the lotus flower, and a pair of fish.

The kendi, a ritual container for holy water, is widespread in the Southeast Asian repertoire of vessels. Between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, Chinese glazed stoneware produced in Guangdong and Fujian provinces was exported in large quantities to ports in Southeast Asia. While widespread in the Philippines and Indonesia, the dearth of kendi in China suggests that these vessels were made specifically as export items for the Southeast Asian market.

This small plate was recovered from the wreckage of the Dutch East Indian Company ship “The Geldermalsen” which sank in the South China Sea in 1752. Records indicate that the cargo was packed in Canton and bound for Amsterdam. When the wreck was excavated it yielded a rich assortment of blue-and-white saucers and cups that were designed for the new fashion of tea and coffee drinking in Europe.

Under the reign of Abbas I (1588-1629) Chinese blue and white became very popular in Isfahan, the capital of the Safavid Empire. This vessel represents a later incarnation of Kubachi ware which was marketed to Europe in an effort to compete in the lucrative ceramics trade dominated by China.

Technically, this small bowl combines two very different methods. The interior of the bowl employs an underglaze blue-and-white decorative scheme; the exterior is painted with vibrant enamel decoration. This combination of different technique, which requires several distinct firings, became a popular way to showcase the virtuosity of imperial ceramic artists.

The motifs used to decorate this vase all have symbolic significance. The pomegranate, because of its abundance seeds, is often associated with virility. The peach in literary stories has long been associated with immortality. In Chinese foshou, the pronunciation for Buddha’s hand citron (Citrus medica var. sarcodactylus), sounds similar to long-life and therefore this exotic, aromatic fruit often symbolizes longevity and happiness. The shape of this vase, known as meiping, is said to be modeled after the curvaceous figure of a young woman and is designed to hold a single plum blossom—a symbol of virtue.

The willow pattern, said to tell the sad story of a pair of star-crossed lovers, was an entirely European design, though one that was strongly influenced in style by design features borrowed from Chinese export porcelains of the eighteenth century. The willow pattern was, in turn, copied by Chinese potters, but with the decoration hand painted rather than transfer-printed.

When Chinese porcelain became widely popular in Europe in the mid-1600s, Europeans did not fully understand how porcelain was produced (it requires a high-fired additive known as kaolin). Theories proposed that the coveted material was made by burying a variety of materials including lobster shells and plaster in the ground for eighty years. However, continuous experiments at a manufactory in Saint-Cloud, a small town west of Paris, produced a distinctive paste. As the first major porcelain factory in France, Saint-Cloud began production of soft-paste porcelain in the early 1690s. New influences gradually increased availability, and eventual unable to compete Saint-Cloud closed in 1766.