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Chapter 8 All over the world, ‘Ming’ has become shorthand not only
for valuable porcelain of all periods but for preciousness
Early Ming Ceramics: more broadly. This is despite the fact that many Ming
1
ceramics were mass produced and much was globally
Rethinking the Status of exported. For example, 57,000 pieces of porcelain were sent
through the reciprocal trade in return for ‘tribute’ in the
Blue-and-White single year of 1383 to Thailand, Java and other Southeast
Asian states. Today other Ming ceramics have become rare
2
multi-million pound treasures, possessed by a few. Liu
Jessica Harrison-Hall Yiqian 劉益謙, a Shanghai billionaire, bought the
Meiyintang collection’s Chenghua 成化 period doucai 斗彩
‘chicken cup’, made between 1464 and 1487, from Sotheby’s
Hong Kong sale on 8 April 2014 for the world record price of
HK$281.24 million (nearly £24 million). He caused a social
media storm by paying for it on his American Express card
and drinking tea from it just as the Qianlong emperor did.
3
With this paradox in mind, this chapter explores the status
of blue-and-white in the early 1400s in a variety of contexts,
with perhaps surprising results.
In the 1400s, Ming Chinese porcelain was still so rare in
Italy that it was considered a material suitable for
presentation to God, representing perhaps a zenith of
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material wealth. There was no direct trade between China
and Europe at this time and so luxury goods came to Italy
indirectly, via the Middle East or Africa. One of the earliest
representations of Ming blue-and-white porcelain from
Jingdezhen is seen in a Madonna and Child (Pl. 8.1) by
Plate 8.1 Francesco Benaglio (c. 1432–92), Madonna and Child, late
1460s. Tempera on panel transferred to canvas, height 80.7cm, width
56.2cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Widener Collection,
1942.9.44
Early Ming Ceramics: Rethinking the Status of Blue-and-White | 77
