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Plate 8.17 Detail of wine vessels in Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Plate 8.18 Detail of blue-and-white jar in Elegant Gathering in
Garden (Xingyuan yaji tu 杏園雅集圖), dated 1437, Beijing. Handscroll, the Apricot Garden (Xingyuan yaji tu 杏園雅集圖), dated 1437,
ink and colours on silk, height 37.5cm, width 240.7cm. Metropolitan Beijing. Handscroll, ink and colours on silk, height 37.5cm,
Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, the Dillon Fund Gift 1989 width 240.7cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
(1989.141.3) Purchase, the Dillon Fund Gift 1989 (1989.141.3)

from this era in these shapes, although vessels with these
glazes in other shapes are known.
The court aesthetic of Ming China in the early 15th
century favoured overall patterns, exuberance and bright
colours. We see this in the furnishings and fabrics for daily
court use, not to mention the scarlet pillars and buttercup-
yellow roof tiles of the Forbidden City. Broken pots,
excavated at Jingdezhen, all date to the Yongle era and
demonstrate the range of colour combinations experimented
with at that time. Many of the colour combinations that we
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associate with the 16th century were in fact already in use in
the early 15th century. We also know from surviving pieces
that these new colours – emerald green, coffee brown, sky
blue – were made in the early Ming. Purple and sky-blue
vessels in a range of table wares were made at Juntai in early
Ming shapes, as well as flower pots of the same colours. It is
the full range of shapes which has not survived, skewing our
understanding of the material culture of the period.
For the festivals, eunuchs dressed up as itinerant salesmen
(Pl. 8.16) so that the imperial household could play at
shopping. Ceramics and other collectables were brought in
to the palace. These would have included items from other
kilns, such as Longquan, which produced goods both for the
court and for the local market in the 1400s, and their
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Jingdezhen copies. Very little that was new in the way of
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ceramic technology was invented after the Yongle era until
we reach the 18th century.
Plate 8.19 Reliquary, Ming dynasty, c. 1436–50. Discovered in 1959
in the basement of the stupa at Hongjue Temple, Niushoushan, Finally, it is worth noting that we do see blue-and-white
Nanjing, Jiangsu province. Gilt bronze, height 32.7cm. Nanjing ceramics depicted in non-imperial contexts of the early
Museum Ming. In a scene of the scroll, Elegant Gathering in the Apricot
Garden, of 1437 (see Pl. 11.1), male and female servants
prepare wine and snacks for the three Yangs, who represent

84 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450