Page 95 - Ming_China_Courts_and_Contacts_1400_1450 Craig lunas

Plate 8.20 (left) Detail from Assembly of Artists and Scholars of Various Talents and
Schools of Former Times (Wanggu jiuliu baijia zhu shi yishu zhong 往古九流百家諸士藝術
眾),
c. 1459, Shanxi or Beijing. Hanging scroll, ink, colours and gold on silk, Image: height
118cm, width 61.5cm; with mount: height 190cm, width 89cm. Shanxi Museum, from
Baoningsi, Youyu county

Plate 8.21 (above) Blue-and-white porcelain bowl, early 15th century. Height 5.8cm,
diameter 14.4cm. Nanjing Shipyard Museum

the power behind the child Zhengtong emperor. They are pyramid and catches it without breaking it. Another man in
served wine in white porcelain bowls, but use blue-and-white this group, who is tattooed all over with blue dragons,
storage jars from which the wine is decanted (Pl. 8.17). On prompts further thoughts about the exclusivity of that
another table in the painting is a blue-and-white jar next to imperial emblem. At the Nanjing shipyards, some poor-
two cups on lacquer stands (Pl. 8.18). So this material does quality blue-and-white porcelain has been excavated (Pl.
appear on the drinks tables of powerful bureaucrats. 8.21) dating to the early 1400s, suggesting that low-quality
47
In addition to pictorial evidence, at least one actual blue-and-white wares fired at non-imperial kilns were
surviving example shows the relationship between blue-and- available on the open market. High-quality products were
white ceramics and a powerful (but non-imperial) individual tightly controlled by the court.
close to the court. This gilt-bronze miniature dagoba, the To conclude, in the 15th century outside China – in
Himalayan form of an Indian stupa, contains the reliquary Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia – Ming
in the centre (Pl. 8.19). The four blue-and-white porcelain blue-and-white porcelain was regarded as an extremely
jars around it are for storing fragrant herbs. Li Tong 李童 high-status commodity. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was
(d. 1453), a court eunuch who served as Director of Imperial still a luxury, if one of widespread reach. In China, the
Accoutrements under the Xuande emperor, donated this picture may well be very different, and perhaps blue-and-
reliquary, under his Buddhist name Li Fushan 李福善, to white, while ordered for court use, was not actually used by
the Hongjuesi 宏覺寺 (Monastery of Vast Awakening) at the emperor personally and was instead utilised as a palace
Mount Niushou 牛首山 near Nanjing, as an act of perpetual ornament or for items for broader court use. This attitude to
45
offering. Li Tong was also the principal patron of the ceramics once again connects the early Ming to the Yuan
Fahaisi 法海寺 (Monastery of the Sea of the Law) in the period. It may be that while in Europe blue-and-white
48
western suburbs of Beijing. As head of the Department of porcelain was initially regarded literally as a gift fit for God,
46
Imperial Accoutrements, he was able to bring together the in China itself it was not regarded as being fit for use by the
work of the finest imperial craftsmen working in clay, stone Son of Heaven.
and metal.
Very few representations of ordinary people in the early Notes
15th century exist from China, and even fewer of the objects 1 Pierson 2013, 57–80 explores the idea of ‘Ming vases’ and their
they owned. Ceramics do however appear in the Shuilu set of pricelessness.
ritual paintings from Shanxi. An amusing example of this is 2 Brook 2010, 219.
3 http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/07/24/chinese-billionaire-liu-
an acrobatic act showing a strong man, a woman and a yiqian-sparks-outrage-by-drinking-out-of-500-year-old-chicken-
dwarf holding a porcelain vase (Pl. 8.20), part of an act (still cup-worth-38m/.
being performed in 2011 in Shanghai) in which the small 4 Spriggs 1965.
man tosses the vase into the air from the top of a human 5 Martin 2001.

Early Ming Ceramics: Rethinking the Status of Blue-and-White | 85