Page 12 - Yuan Dynasty Ceramics

Chapter 07 (pp. 330-385)_Layout 1 7/7/10 5:42 PM Page 341

7.12. Liuli ware tripod incense burner with carved dragon, 7.13. Brick in form of modeled dancing figure (or actor), Yuan
phoenix, and peony decoration and colorful peacock blue, dynasty, 39 cm tall. Excavated from a tomb in Jiaozuo city,
yellow ochre, and grassy green glazes, Yuan dynasty, 37 cm Henan province. Henan Provincial Museum.
tall, 22 cm mouth diameter. Excavated in 1964 from a site in
Beijing. Capital Museum, Beijing.

at a low temperature; the underlying clay body, by con- Fahua wares were developed further during the suc-
trast, was fired at a temperature more typically used for ceeding Ming dynasty, when they began to be produced
stoneware. This technique, which made the works more in the south, at Jingdezhen. A feature of Ming dynasty
durable, was used again during the Yuan dynasty at fahua wares is the use of white slip trails to create cloi-
northern kilns in Shanxi province to produce fahua sonné wire-like boundaries between different colors of
(bounded pattern) wares. In addition, glaze colors on glaze. Early Ming remains suggest that both liuli and fahua
fourteenth-century liuli and fahua wares were deliberately wares were Yuan dynasty outgrowths of the architectural
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separated, in a process much like the resist technique tile work industry. Large glazed and unglazed ceramic
used during the Yuan dynasty on the Longquan and Jun architectural elements have been found at early Ming
wares, as well as on Jizhou ware to reserve unglazed areas sites such as Fengyang and Nanjing. The most elaborate
and create a demarcated contrasting color (discussed and complete is the liuli-ware Nine Dragon Screen at Da-
more fully later). Sometimes, as seen on the liuli-ware in- tong in Shanxi province, which was constructed in 1392
cense burner, motifs are reserved and glazed white, a in front of the mansion where the thirteenth son of the
technique and color associated with lead alkaline glazed Hongwu emperor lived. Significantly, the glaze and mo-
fahua wares. The development of fahua wares seems to tifs on a liuli-ware jar in the collection of the Asian Art
have been spurred by experimentation with separation of Museum of San Francisco are closely related to the Nine
zones of color, usually by incising or carving, on liuli. Af- Dragon Screen. On this jar, a pierced “screen” of open-
ter another Yuan incense burner, related to the one re- work dragon and phoenix motifs is placed over a cylin-
covered from the Beijing site, was linked to a kiln site in drical clay container (Fig. 7.17). Similar construction
Shanxi province, a number of fahua wares were reattrib- methods are found on fahua jars in the British Museum
uted to the Yuan period. 47 attributed to the fifteenth to early sixteenth centuries. 49

Yuan Dynasty Ceramics 341