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Both grape vines and melon plantss can also be seen on rare large blue and
white octagonal double gourd vases in the Yuan period. They tend to appear
within the cartouches on the lower part of these vases. Two such double gourd
vases are in the collection of the Topkapi Saray, Istanbul – one including birds
and insects, and the other including frog, lizard and insects illustrated by J.
Ayers and R. Krahl in Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum Istanbul,
vol. II, Yuan and Ming Dynasty Porcelains, London, 1986, pp. 498-500, nos.
576 and 577, respectively. Vines and melons also appear in a cartouche on
a meiping in the Topkapi Saray (illustrated ibid., p. 497, no. 575), while grape
vines and melons also appear, alongside rocks and bamboo on the interior of a
bowl in the same collection (illustrated ibid., p. 497, no. 573).
It is signifcant that these two fruit – grapes and melons – were selected
from amongst the various plants which were included in the nature-based
ensembles on Yuan dynasty blue and white vessels to appear on the current
vase, for it was these two fruits which also went on to appear individually in the
central roundels of fne imperial blue and white dishes in the early 15th century,
as the interest in fruit as a subject for decoration increased in the Yongle reign. suggest another link with lands to the west of China’s borders. They are
A large dish decorated with grapes on a vine was excavated from the Yongle
stratum at the imperial kilns at Zhushan Jingdezhen in 1994 (illustrated in
Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain excavated at Jingdezhen, Taipei, 1996,
pp. 166-7, no. 51), while a dish decorated with a melon plant was also excavated
at Zhushan in 1994 (illustrated ibid. pp. 156-7, no. 46). Both melons on the vine
and grapes on the vine were regarded a symbolic of ceaseless generations
of sons and grandsons. In the case of the grapes this was in part because
they grow in clusters of many fruit, and in the case of melons it was because
they contain many seeds. In addition, the vines and tendrils of these plants
– mandai (蔓帶) in Chinese – suggest the phrase wandai (萬代, `ten thousand
generations’).
In the context of the current vase it is also interesting to note that grapes are
not indigenous to China, but are among the plants that are recorded as having
been brought to China from Central Asia by Zhang Qian, a returning envoy of
Emperor Wudi in 128 BC, and many diferent varieties of grape were grown
in China by the early 15th century. Records show that both green and black
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grapes were grown by the beginning of the 6th century AD, and Song dynasty
texts mention a seedless variety. An extensive illustrated entry on grapes
(Chinese putao 葡萄) is included in volume ( juan) 23 of the Chongxiu Zhenghe
Jingshi Zhenglei Beiying Bencao (Classifed and Consolidated Armamentarium
Pharmacopoeia of the Zhenghe Reign (AD 1111-1117). The grapes were eaten
fresh, as well as dried in the form of raisins, but do not seem to have been
widely used to make wine until the Tang dynasty. Grapes rarely appeared
as decoration on Chinese art objects of the early period, with the exception
of those depicted in relief on pilgrim fasks of the period Six Dynasties-Sui
dynasty (AD 6th-7th century), which were infuenced by the arts of Central
and Western Asia. Grapes became a more popular motif in the Tang dynasty,
when, again under western infuences, they regularly appeared, for example,
as part of the ubiquitous ‘lion and grape’ motif on bronze mirrors. However,
grapes do not seem to appear asw decorative motifs on painted ceramics until
the Yuan dynasty.
The unusual shape of the leaves of the grape vines on the current vase perhaps
somewhat reminiscent of the palmette and leaf motifs depicted on early Near
Eastern ceramics, including those decorated with cobalt blue, especially
those from the Samarra area in Iraq in the 9th century (see for example the
dish illustrated by D. Talbot Rice in Islamic Art, London, 1977 reprint, p. 39).
Inspiration from the West in the decoration on Yuan dynasty blue and white
porcelains is not as surprising as it might initially seem, since it is well-
documented that many craftsmen from the Islamic West were employed at
the Jingdezhen kilns during the Yuan dynasty (see Liu Xinyuan, ‘Yuan Dynasty
Oficial Wares from Jingdezhen’, The Porcelains of Jingdezhen, Rosemary Scott
(ed.), Colloquies on Art & Archaeology in Asia, No. 16, London, 1993, p. 36 and
Xu Youren (許有壬), Zhizheng Ji (至正集 Collection from the reign of Zhizheng),
juan 9).
This rare vase, therefore, provides references to the sources of inspiration at
the Yuan dynasty kilns, as well as presaging the tastes of the Chinese court in
the early 15th century.