Page 54 - Yuan Dynasty Ceramics

Chapter 07 (pp. 330-385)_Layout 1 7/7/10 5:42 PM Page 383

7.54. Needleloop embroidery from a cloud collar made of silk
and silver thread and silvered paper, featuring motifs of the
ocean, rocks, and peonies, Yuan or Ming dynasty, late fourteenth
century, 63.2 cm x 59.9 cm. Cleveland Museum of Art.

garden landscape, which incorporated pine, flowering
plum, bamboo, and rockery. 248 Earlier versions of this
motif can be seen in a few Yuan wares presumably pro-
duced at private kilns between 1352 and 1368. One of
these is a freely painted bowl with a continuous band of
the Three Friends of Winter on the exterior. In the center
of the interior is a rather unusual view from behind a
palace balustrade of mandarin ducks in “a pond full of
beauty,” and a chrysanthemum band near the interior rim.
This Yuan bowl shows well the evolution of certain mo-
tifs of the Yuan era, such as the banana tree and palace
balustrade, as these came to be painted in a new style and
have a different emphasis in the early Ming period.
Indeed a close comparison of how the motifs were 7.55. Jingdeshen underglaze red wine bottle with cover (meiping)
rendered can illuminate developments in ceramics during and Three Friends of Winter design, Ming dynasty, early period
the two eras. In particular, two distinct styles of rocks are of the Hongwu reign (ca. 1369–1388), 41.6 cm tall. Excavated in
1957 from a tomb in Jiangning county, Jiangsu, datable to 1429.
executed on Yuan underglaze painted wares: tonal, such
Nanjing Museum.
as the rocks on the Yuan drama meiping, and those com-
posed of contrasting bands, as seen on the Yuan bowl
with the three friends motif. Hongwu potters, after a pe-
riod of experimentation during which they produced Yuan textiles, then became the early Ming standard. 249
some complex tonal renderings of rockery, adopted the The same is true for the rendering of textured pine bark,
contrasting band approach to painting rocks (Fig. 7.57; which in the Hongwu period is reduced to a series of c-
see also Figs. 7.53, 7.56). Such rocks, which may have shaped curls or swirls similar to those on Yuan or early
been derived from representations of rocks on Song and Ming embroidered textiles (see Figs. 7.54, 7.55). 250 This

Yuan Dynasty Ceramics 383