Page 4 - Ming Porcelain Primer

5 LARGE WHITE-GLAZED
DISH
Jingdezhen porcelain with a tianbai
glaze
H 8.0 cm, Dia. 43.5 cm
Ming dynasty, Yongle (1403–1424)
reign
Inv.-No. OKS 1974-23, on loan from
the OKS
PROVENANCE: Acquired by the OKS
with the help of Vereniging Rem-
brandt, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfond
and Aardewerk, The Hague
Publ.: Harrisson 1985, p. 35; Ströber underneath the glaze, which in Chinese is aptly called anhua, or hidden
2013
This large dish of is one of the most intriguing objects in the Princessehof
collection. It has a flattened rim and a contracted foot, the inner side of
which is cleanly cut. The base is unglazed and flat.
The dish is covered with a white glossy glaze, which appears sugary
and is smooth to the touch. In China this glaze was called tianbai, sweet
white. Tianbai-glazed pieces were made in the official kilns in Jingdezhen
during the Yongle reign but were also fired during later reigns. The Yongle
sweet white is considered to be of the finest quality.
Fascination unfolds if you are lucky enough to hold the dish obliquely
to the light: the matt glaze reveals minute, dense bubbles, which reflect
and scatter the light thus creating the softness to the glaze. In the right
reflected light, a very subtle, slightly incised decoration becomes visible
decoration. In the centre is a single large branch with two fully blossomed
peonies surrounded in the cavetto with a continuous flower scroll. On the
rim there is an incised design of eight sprays of flowers and fruit.
The dish was probably made for the lavish Buddhist offerings made
to the Yongle emperor’s deceased parents, conducted in 1407 and 1413
and attended by the highest Buddhist lamas from Tibet.
White dishes with anhua design are closely linked to contemporary
blue-and-white decorated dishes. Two blue-and-white dishes of a design
very similar to the anhua on the Princessehof white dish and of the same
size are in the collection of the Ardebil Shrine in Iran; another blue-and-
white dish is in the Topkapi Saray collection in Istanbul.
The existence of large dishes painted in blue-and-white and in the
same design as the incised design on the tianbai dish suggests that in the
imperial kilns in Jingdezhen, dishes for the imperial court were made
alongside dishes for export to Muslim countries.
Ref.: Large white dishes from the Yongle period can be found in the historical collections of the Middle
East. For the Ardebil Shrine: Pope 1956, pls 110–112, nos 29.687, 29.678, 29.694, 29.697 and 29.679,
most of them with a diameter of around 40 cm. Seven dishes are in the Topkapi Saray collection: Krahl
and Ayers 1986, vol. 2, p. 625, no. 625. The dishes from the Addis collection (Addis 1979, pp. 34–40, nos
11, 12 and 13) were given to the British Museum: Harrison-Hall 2001, pp. 102–103, nos 3:6, 3:7, 3:8, 3:9
and 3:10. For excavations of Yongle porcelain with tianbai glaze: Hong Kong 1989, pp. 84–129, nos 1–23.
For the blue-and-white design in the Ardebil Shrine: Pope 1956, pl. 32, no. 29.65; for those in the Topkapi
Saray collection: Krahl and Ayers 1986, vol. 2, pp. 511–512; Carswell 2000, p. 93, no. 95; Lu 2004, p. 18,
pl. 1.17; Sargent 2012, pp. 45–46, no. 1.
A dish with blue-and-white design and of the same diameter as the white dish from the Princessehof
Museum was excavated 1988 in the Yongle stratum in Jingdezhen: Beijing Capital Museum 2007, no. 73.
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