Page 151 - 2019 October Important Chinese Art Sotheby's Hong Kong

“HE WHO HAS SEEN LITTLE,
MARVELS MUCH”

A RARELY SEEN EARLY BLOWN GLASS BOWL

REGINA KRAHL

Considering the proficiency achieved by Chinese artisans Occasional references in contemporary texts attest to
working with glass since the Bronze Age, it remains one of its preciousness. In Jin shu [History of the Jin dynasty],
art history’s great surprises that glass did not become more for example, one biography states about the person “The
widely used in Chinese society. Chinese glass from before emperor’s favours were often bestowed on his house He was
the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) is exceedingly rare, and the supplied with abundant food, all stored inside glass vessels”
present piece, which is unique, would seem to represent one (An Jiayao, ‘Glass Vessels and Ornaments of the Wei, Jin
of the finest examples preserved. and Northern and Southern Dynasties Periods’, in Cecilia
Braghin, ed., Chinese Glass. Archaeological Studies on the
Chinese potters had worked with glass-like glazes since
the early Bronze Age, and in the later Bronze Age glass Uses and Social Context of Glass Artefacts from the Warring
States to the Northern Song Period, Orientalia Venetiana XIV,
artisans quickly learned to copy foreign glass ‘eye beads’, Florence, 2002, p. 58).
that is, beads inlaid with complex eye patterns in different
colours that had arrived from Central or Western Asia. They The material and the secrets of its manufacture were long
also fashioned custom-made polychrome glass plaques shrouded in mystery, which undoubtedly contributed to
with similar patterns to be inlayed into bronze vessels and its aura. The fourth-century Daoist scholar and alchemist
smaller bronze items, thereby creating some of the most Ge Hong stated “In foreign countries … people make
desirable luxury goods of the time. bowls of glass (lit. rock crystal, shui ching [shui jing]) by
combining five sorts of ash. Nowadays in our southern
After these promising beginnings, the medium had a less
successful interim period in the Han dynasty (206 BC – AD coastal provinces, Chiaochow [Jiaozhou] and Kuangchow
220). One of the reasons that glass did not experience the [Guangzhou], many have obtained knowledge of this art,
and engage in such a smelting to produce it… But when
meteoritic rise in popularity one might have expected, may they speak of it (as rock crystal) ordinary people will not
be that its quality as a medium in its own right was not fully
realised. Instead, its usefulness as a suitable material to believe them, saying that rock crystal is a substance found
simulate jade and other precious or semi-precious stones only in Nature … belonging to the category of jade … He
who has seen little, marvels much – that is the way of the
was discovered, which thus could be replaced by a cheaper world.” (Joseph Needham with Lu Gwei-Djen, Science
alternative. Although the use of glass became more wide- and Civilisation in China, vol. 5: Chemistry and Chemical
spread, this usage as a substitute of more precious materials
temporarily very likely reduced its appreciation and prestige. Technology, part II: Spagyrical Discovery and Invention:
Magisteries of Gold and Immortality, Cambridge, 1974, p.
A new chapter began with the significant influx of Central 64).
Asian and Middle Eastern foreigners, their goods and their Even throughout the Tang (618-907), glass seems to have
tastes via the Silk Route, particularly in the Nanbeichao remained rare and was not much used in daily life, not even
period (Southern and Northern Dynasties, 420-589) and the at court, but appears to have been largely reserved for use
centuries thereafter. Glass vessels were among the luxuries
brought across the Central Asian desert from Iran, Syria and in a Buddhist context. Although Schafer talks about several
foreign missions bringing gifts of glass to the Tang court in
other parts of the Roman Empire, and these new transparent Chang’an, and even states that Emperor’s Xuanzong’s (r.
vessels, seemingly insubstantial, yet fully functional, were 713-756) notorious concubine Yang Guifei is reputed to have
greatly admired. Glass achieved an elevated status and was
produced in China once more, inspired by the technology drunk grape wine from a glass cup, that cup was apparently
decorated with the Seven Teasures of Buddhism (Edward H.
imported by foreign artisans.
Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand, Berkeley/Los
Angeles, 1963, p. 143 and pp. 234-6).