print
- Museum number
- 1906,1128,0.30
- Title
- Object: Fruit Plate; 果盤; Guo pan
- Description
-
Multi-colour woodblock print in ink on blind pressed paper
A plate full of open pomegranates and apples
- Production date
- c. 1735-c. 1750
- Dimensions
-
Height: 24.90 centimetres (image)
-
Height: 29.80 centimetres (paper)
-
Width: 27.80 centimetres (image)
-
Width: 35.60 centimetres (paper)
- Curator's comments
- The luxurious arrangement of fruit in this print can be read as a visual pun. The seeds (zi) in the open pomegranate are pronounced in the same way as the character for ‘sons’. The fruit therefore stands for the wish for many sons to insure the family line over generations.
The pastel pinks and greens used for the fruit plate resemble the colour scheme seen on decorated porcelain at the time.
Prints from the Ding workshop were sometimes produced from seven or more separate colour woodblocks and show an extraordinary richness in ink tonalities, overlaid colours and fine ink gradations.
Published: Binyon 1916, 29; Goepper 1973, 57
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2010 May-Sep, BM, Dept of Asia, The Printed Image in China
2012 5th May -29th July, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, ‘The Printed Image in China’
- Acquisition date
- 1906
- Acquisition notes
- Transferred from the Library where this print formed part of Sloane manuscript 5252.
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1906,1128,0.30
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: B.29
-
Miscellaneous number: SL.5252