Page 112 - Catalog Of Chinese Applied Art

—On the top of the Case

682. LARGE WINE JAR, without cover. A strong example of Ming blue and white.
15 inches wide.
Date mark, " Wan Li." 11 inches high, Ming.

Lent by G. Eumorfopoulos, Esq.

683. —TALL JAR, with cylindrical neck rim restored. Ground of deep blue glaze, bearing

dragons with bright yellow, turquoise and aubergine glazes over a frieze of waves, and
a fret border running round the base of the piece. Height 17J inches. Ming.

Lent by R. H. Benson, Esq.

684. LARGE WINE JAR, without cover, painted with figures in landscape. A strap

diaper round neck. Ming blue and white. Height 13 J inches, diameter 14 inches. Ming.

Lent by G. Eumorfopoulos, Esq.

685. LONG STRIP OF EMBROIDERY, on a dark grey satin ground, with design

of cranes worked at the ends. The centre panels with dogs, deer, temples,
conventional waves and clouds in gold thread and coloured silks. 4 yards 8 inches
long by 23 inches. Ming,

This is probably the oldest piece of embroidery in the Exhibition.

Lent by Mrs. R. H. Benson

ROOM No. IV

Nos. 686 to 879

The objects arranged in this room comprise bronzes of the Chou Dynasty, 1122 B.C.

to 255 B.C. The earliest pottery is referred to the Han Dynasty 206 B.C. to 220 a.d.,

and the T'ang Dynasty 618-907 a.d. These wares are full of problems for the student
of the historical development of the arts, for they show strong traces of Babylonian
and other Western influences on a pottery that is otherwise strongly individual.
As the Chinese had evidently been great workers in bronze before they made any
distinctive pottery that has survived, we find a constant tendency in the early pottery
forms to reproduce older bronze shapes. This tendency, most strongly marked in

Han and T'ang times, persisted down to the very end. The modelled animals and

figures which have so recently left the ancient graves in which they had been buried,
to astonish and delight European connoisseurs, are noteworthy among all the modelled
work of the world, and again it is of interest to compare the style of the T'ang Buddha
in bronze, with the pottery figure of a musician, both exhibited in Case Ee.

Under the Sung Dynasty (960-1279) we reach a period of great artistic refinement
when vases and bowls in exceedingly simple forms of great perfection, often appearing

to be based on bronze or stone originals, were covered with thick unctuous glazes in
the most varied shades of greyish green (celadon), or greyish blue {clair de lune).
It was about this time or a little earlier that porcelain, as distinct from pottery,

first made its appearance in the world, and the change was a momentous one from
every point of view. The strength, the reserve and the refinement displayed in
the simple porcelains of this early epoch place them in a class apart, artistically,
from all that the world has since produced. As far as is possible, objects of the same

period have been grouped together, but in a few cases exigencies of space have com-
pelled a piece or two to be placed where they do not strictly belong.

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