Page 101 - Jie Rui Tang Kangxi porcelain mar 2018

Widely acknowledged as one of the most the Kangxi period. Finely painted in varying notes that the vase in the Victoria and Albert
popular love stories in Chinese literature, tones of underglaze cobalt blue, the bowl Museum, similar to the present bowl, does
Romance of the Western Chamber ! rst illustrates twelve identi! able episodes from not include the marriage scene and suggests
appeared in the Tang dynasty in a short the famous play. Among the scenes depicted that the Kangxi era ushered in changes of
story by Yuan Zhen ‘The Story of Yingying’. It are, ‘The Repudiation of the Billet-Doux’ in taste. The play had taken on a more tragic
continued to be retold and elaborated upon which the overly eager Zhang, summoned by aspect, ending not in a happy union but rather
reaching a more de! nitive form in the 13th Yingying, leaps over a wall into a garden only enigmatically with a dream sequence.
century in the version written by Wang Shifu. to be spurned for his inappropriate haste;
A related bowl and stand of similarly large
The play, set in the Tang dynasty, relates the ‘Hongniang in the Dock’ showing Yingying’s
proportions but decorated in famille-verte
travails of love that beset a young aristocratic loyal maid kneeling apologetically before
enamels and depicting twenty-four scenes
beauty, Yingying, and an aspiring scholar, Yingying’s furious mother who has learned
within shaped reserves on a stippled green
Zhang Sheng. Contemporary chronicles and about the a$ air between her daughter and
ground is in the Groningen Museum and
imagery produced in di$ erent media attest Zhang; and ‘Zhang Departs for the Capital’
illustrated in Christiaan J. A. Jö rg. Famille
the play’s enduring popularity. Romance of when the lovers sorrowfully part as the
Verte: Chinese Porcelain in Green Enamels,
the Western Chamber was so famous that young scholar sets out to take the imperial
Groninger Museum, Groningen, 2011, pl. 94.
series of woodblock prints were created in the examinations.
For further reading on the subject see Hsu
late Ming dynasty reproducing key dramatic
In style of composition and painting the Wen-Chin, ‘Illustration of ‘Romance of the
moments from the play. These prints proved
present bowl relates quite closely to a large Western Chamber’ on Chinese Porcelains:
to be a very useful resource to the artisans at
cylindrical vase in the Victoria and Albert Iconography, Style and Development’, Ars
Jingdezhen providing a template that allowed
Museum in London illustrated in Stacey Orientalis, Vol. 40, 2011, pp 39-107, and Yibin
them to more readily satisfy the demand for
Pierson, Chinese Ceramics, Victoria and Ni, ‘The Shunzhi Emperor and the Popularity
the subject matter whether destined for the
Albert Museum, London, 2009, pl. 95 and of Scenes from the ‘Romance of the Western
imperial household or for mass consumption.
front cover ( g. 1). The vase depicts twenty- Chamber’ on Porcelain’, Shunzhi Porcelain,
The present bowl is among the best examples four scenes from the drama which are clearly Treasures from an Unknown Reign, Alexandria,
of a graphic style of storytelling, a technique de! ned within linear borders. In an article Virginia, 2002, pp 68-81.
which reached unprecedented heights in on the subject (cited below), Hsu Wen-Chin

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