dish
- Museum number
- 1936,1012.150
- Description
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Dish with curved sides and a slightly everted rim: deep base. Stoneware covered with a thick celadon glaze changing to 'pinkish lavender' with cloudy smoke stains. Fire damaged. Five spur marks on the base. Qianlong inscription.
- Production date
- 1086-1125
- Dimensions
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Height: 3.40 centimetres
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Width: 18.40 centimetres
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Depth: 18.60 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Ru dish with Qianlong Emperor’s inscription
Potters in Henan province made Ru wares for the Northern Song imperial court for just twenty or possibly forty years. Very few examples survive today outside the kiln sites. Song dynasty authors describe the Ru glaze as containing powdered agate which was mined locally to the Qingliangsi kiln site. Modern scientists have proved the fine bluish colour of this glaze is in fact due to dissolved iron-oxide, together with very low levels of titanium dioxide. The Qianlong emperor (r.1736-1795) had this particular dish in his extensive collection of art and objects. He ordered the base to be incised in the Palace with his own reflections on the vessel’s glaze. This reads: 趙宋青窑建汝州傳 聞瑪瑙末為油 而今景德無斯法 亦自出藍寳色浮 乾隆己亥夏禦題 and translates [In the Northern Song dynasty (the manufacture of) celadons (qing) was established at Ruzhou. Tradition says that powdered agate or cornelian (ma nao) was used to make the glaze. But nowadays at Jingdezhen this is not the method; and moreover, the precious blue (lan) colour emerges spontaneously on the surface. Composed by the Emperor Qianlong in the summer of the cyclical year jihai [AD 1779]]. This poem is found in 集部/別集類/清代/御製詩集/四集卷六十一[The Collected Works of the Qianlong emperor, juan number 4, number 61]. The seal at the end reads古香[ancient fragrance]. The dish must have remained in the Forbidden City until 1923 when it was caught in a fire there which caused the glaze’s pink blushes, possibly as a result of proximity to bronze vessels in the same fire.
Stoneware with celadon glaze and incised inscription
Qingliangsi, Baofeng, Henan province, China
Northern Song dynasty, AD 1086-1125
Purchased with the help of public subscription from the George Eumorfopoulos collection, Asia 1936.10-12.150
- Location
- On display (G33/dc27b/s1)
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
2015 – 2016 4 Dec – 29 May, National Museum of Singapore, ‘Treasures of the World’s Cultures’
2012 Nov 30 - 2013 Apr 4, Bonn, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle, ‘Treasures of The World's Cultures’
- Acquisition date
- 1936
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1936,1012.150
