Page 476 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

clay bricks from a fifth-century tomb at Xishan-
jiao, Nanjing, where Ruan Ji (210-263), one of the
Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, lifts his cup to
his lips in company with his fellows.
Wine and its cup continued to be essential
accouterments of the gentleman-scholar-artist's
life. In addition, the motifs decorating this cup
and others like it are emblematic of good fortune:
the cock was a symbol of achievement and harbin-
ger of fame and, combined with the peony, a rebus
of riches and honors—presumably devolving on
the imbiber.
Tradition has it that the Chenghua emperor's
favorite concubine, Wan Guifei, had a voice in
determining the wares produced at the imperial
kiln at Jingdezhen. If this be true, then the exqui-
site beauty and fine quality of Chenghua porce-
lains reflect the sensitive and subtle taste of a
sophisticated, pleasure-loving court. S.E.L.

2
3 5
WINE CUP

Chenghua mark and period (1465—1487) tinged underside, cobalt blue also renders the six- separated Cleveland and Taipei examples. The
Chinese character reign-mark within a double-outlined provenance of the Cleveland cup indicates that it
white porcelain with dou cai decoration rectangular cartouche. Red, green, and yellow probably came from the Palace Collection in the
7
height 4.8 (i /s) enamels fill in the costumes, flowers, and leaves of 19205 or 305 as collateral for loans by the Shang-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, the subject —boys flying kites on a garden terrace. hai Salt Bank, a provenance shared by many
John L. Severance Fund The complex composition required for this small of the imperial porcelains in the Percival David
wine cup attests the porcelain decorators' skill, as Foundation. S.E.L.
does the admirably controlled underglaze drawing
This wine cup, shaped like the wider end of an egg in slightly violet cobalt blue. The warm oil-sheen
on a low ring-foot, is made of fine white porcelain white, perfectly even, seems particularly rich
under a warm transparent glaze. Underglaze blue and unctuous.
outlines the design and colors the rocks; the same The subject, which alludes directly to fertility
blue bounds the design top and bottom, with a and abundant progeny, had by Ming times become
single line just under the rim and a double line generally auspicious and congratulatory. It origi-
encircling the ring-foot. On the faintly cinnamon- nated at least as early as Tang (618-907) times, 326
when bai zi (one hundred, i.e., many, children)
curtains were used in marriage ceremonies. PAIR OF PLATES
During the Song dynasty (960-1279) children
playing, whether few or many, became a common Chenghua reign (1465-1487)
Chinese
motif, rendered by painters of the imperial acad- white porcelain with dou cai decoration
emy as well as by those lesser lights who painted height 3.8 (iVz), diameter 16.6 (6 h)
l
auspicious subjects for restaurants, pleasure quar- reference: Rogers 1990, 75-76
ters, and affluent homes.
A mate to this cup is in the National Palace National Palace Museum, Taipei
Museum, Taipei — the only other example of
Chenghua date known to the author, although Ornamenting each of these most unusual plates is
Zhengde (1506-1522) copies exist. In the Percival a virtually identical lotus pond inhabited by a pair
David Foundation, London, is an unpublished of mandarin ducks, rendered in a dou cai scheme
handscroll titled Gu Wan Te (Myriad Special of soft underglaze cobalt blue outlines colored in
Antiques), dated to 1728. It is one of at least eight with red, yellow, and green overglaze enamels.
and probably more scrolls (one is reported to be in In the well of each dish, bordered by a circular
the Victoria and Albert Museum) which together double outline in underglaze blue, this design was
provide a visual catalogue of the Yongzheng composed into a somewhat stiff, naively drawn
emperor's (r. 1722-1735) collection. Depicted in pondscape, seen from above, with the lotuses and
the David scroll is a pair of wine cups, identified water weeds very large in scale compared with the
as Chenghua and appearing identical to the now ducks. The same motifs appear around the outside
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