meiping
- Museum number
- 1930,0719.44
- Description
-
Porcelain meiping vase with incised relief decoration, glazed 'qingbai' on a mottled dark blue ground. This unusual meiping has rounded shoulders, tapering sides and a short tubular neck with thickened rim. It is decorated with motifs applied in relief and incised, glazed with a transparent blue-white glaze on a mottled dark blue ground. Three fish - a 'gui' [mandarin fish], 'li' [carp] and another variety of carp - are depicted in different attitudes among large flowering and budding lotus, growing in clusters, and other aquatic plants. Below this is a band of stylized crested waves. The base is smooth and unglazed with a narrow foot ring. This vase has been badly broken and is extensively restored.
- Production date
- 1450-1500 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 40 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Harrison-Hall 2001:
Nothing has been published to date from the Jingdezhen excavations which exactly matches this meiping. However, the formal arrangement of the lotus is very similar to that on a 'doucai' bowl excavated from a mid fifteenth-century context at Dongsiling, Jingdezhen. While reserved designs of fish among aquatic plants on a blue ground were first produced at Jingdezhen in the Xuande era, the quality of painting, porcelain and glaze suggest that the meiping was made later, in the fifteenth century.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1930
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1930,0719.44