Vase
Category
Ceramics
Date
c. 1640
Materials
Hard paste porcelain with underglaze blue (cobalt oxide) decoration.
Measurements
444 mm (H)
Place of origin
Jingdezhen
Order this imageCollection
Dunham Massey, Cheshire
NT 929279
Summary
Vase, hard paste porcelain, sleeve-shaped, i.e. cylindrical with a waisted neck (a shape sometimes called rolwagen), made in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, China, c. 1640, decorated in underglaze blue in 'transitional' style with narrative scenes set in a landscape, with a pendant leaf border around the waisted neck and with underglaze incised bands at the foot and the shoulder.
Full description
Details such as the incised bands at the foot and shoulder, the v-shaped painted strokes suggesting grass and the pendant leaf border are features of the so-called transitional style, seen on some Chinese porcelain made around the time of the transition between the Ming and the Qing dynasties, i.e. around the 1640s. The Imagery is likely derived from woodblock illustrations for popular literature, such as the historical novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi) attributed to Luo Guanzhong (c. 1330-1400). The moral dilemmas featured in such novels may have appealed to Chinese scholar-officials at the time of the Ming-Qing transition, who were experiencing tensions between loyalty to the old dynasty and their Confucian duty to administrate the empire regardless of its current rulers. References: Emile de Bruijn, Borrowed Landscapes: China and Japan in the Historic Houses and Gardens of Britain and Ireland, London, Philip Wilson Publishers in association with the National Trust, 2023, pp. 23-4 (fig. 6), and see further references listed there. (Emile de Bruijn, November 2023)
Provenance
Bequeathed to the National Trust by the 10th Earl of Stamford, 1976.
