Page 192 - Ming_China_Courts_and_Contacts_1400_1450 Craig lunas

Plate 20.5a–b Components for arch surrounds differ in size, showing that the apparent height of the pagoda was emphasised by diminution
in size of ornament on higher storeys: a) c. 1412–31. Height: 51cm, width: 47.6cm, depth: 39.5cm. Nanjing Municipal Museum; b) c. 1412–31,
Height 23.5cm, width 33cm, depth 15.2cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, purchase by subscription, 1879 (79.2.789)

of body material from the pagoda have been compared with indeed were those ‘tiles’ and, if so, how they were installed.
material from Dangtu by researchers at the Palace Museum Clearly, a flat, rectangular or square facing-tile would have
in Beijing. Detected silica and alumina levels of 70% and 20% been an easier shape to produce. However, a flat tile may
are typical for Yongle-period porcelains from Jingdezhen and have been difficult to fix given the unreliable adhesive
this, together with a sintering temperature for the Da Baoen quality of mortars in the early Ming, which were best used
Monastery Pagoda samples of 960–980º +/- 20º centigrade, only under compression as a levelling medium. Researchers
is consistent with the possibility that these are porcelain clays have debated whether these ‘L’ profile bricks might have
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fired to near-stoneware temperatures. been for corbelling, but this would have required that at least
The other uniquely prominent quality of the pagoda is two external faces be glazed. However, Allom’s account
the white cladding which earned it the sobriquet ‘Porcelain offers a cogent answer. He noted that ‘porcelain slabs’ lined
Pagoda’. Many collections possess porcelain bricks formed both the interior and exterior faces, and they were ‘fixed in
with an ‘L’-shaped profile and bearing a white tianbai 甜白 the masonry by means of deep keys, cut like a half T in the
(‘sweet white’) glaze carefully applied to just one external brick’. This suggests that the cladding was achieved by
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face at the base of the ‘L’. They are found in sizes ranging mounting these bricks back-to-back in mirror-pairs that
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from 17 to 37cm along the long edge, and a cache of some were held in position by the brickwork in which they were
2,200 pieces was discovered at Dongmentou 東門頭 at the embedded, with their single glazed faces presenting an
imperial kilns in Jingdezhen, confirming their production uninterrupted external finish (Pl. 20.7).
source (Pl. 20.6a–b). There is one last category of components which can be
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Accounts refer to the pagoda being clad in white ‘tiles’, attributed to the pagoda, by association with finds from
but for some time it was not clear whether these bricks Mount Jubao, from contemporary descriptions and by

Plate 20.6a–b Porcelain
cladding pieces from the Da
Baoen Monastery Pagoda: a)
Yongle period, 1412–19,
Jingdezhen. Height 3.7cm,
width 18.8cm, depth 14.9cm. Sir
Percival David Collection, PDF.
A. 458; b) Yongle period, c.
1412–19. Length 13cm and
37cm. British Museum, London,
Franks.32

182 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450