Ceramics | Appreciation of Pottery and Porcelain in the Palace Museum of Beijing (2). Western Zhou Dynasty to Eastern Han Dynasty

The Palace Museum is China’s largest treasure house of ancient art, with more than 340,000 pottery and porcelain pieces in nearly a million collections.

 

The palace’s use and collection of pottery and porcelain dates back to the Tang Dynasty at the latest.During the Tang and Five Dynasties, the court ordered some fine kilns making porcelain to burn and make tribute porcelain, and the records of Henan white porcelain and Zhejiang Yue kiln celadon to Changan were recorded in “National History Supplement”, “The History of China”, “The History of Yuan and County” and “New Tang Book · Geography”.In Song Dynasty, the court made some porcelain-making kilns, such as Ding kiln, Yaozhou kiln and so on, and then set up such official kilns as Ru kiln, Jun kiln, Xiuansi official kiln, under the imperial altar, etc., to burn the palace porcelain exclusively until the early Ming Dynasty, The royal family has a sizable collection of porcelain from the famous kilns of the Song Dynasty.The Ming and Qing dynasties set up the imperial kiln in Jingdezhen, and sent the potter to supervise the production, regardless of the cost, a large number of burning palace porcelain.From the records of “Ming History”, “Ming Shi Lu”, “Da Ming Hui Dian”, “Jiangxi Dazhi · Tao Shu”, “porcelain affairs exhortation draft · preface”, “Tao Cheng Ji” and so on, the quantity of its burning is very amazing.For example, in the eight years of Ming Xuande, 443,500 pieces of porcelain should be made at a time at the request of the board of directors of the board.Qing Yongzheng six to 13 years” billing tens of thousands of money, and the system into the round cut no less than 3.4 million pieces. “By the end of the Qing Dynasty, hundreds of thousands of porcelain pieces were preserved in the palace.

 

At present, these porcelains are collected in Beijing Palace Museum, Taipei Palace Museum and Nanjing Museum respectively. Other museums and private collections at home and abroad also have sporadic collections, including about 320,000 pieces.Many famous fine products, such as Xingyao White Glaze Kaikou Bowl of Tang Dynasty, Ruyao Three-Foot Pot of Song Dynasty, Goku Fish-ear Furnace, Official Kiln String-Line Bottle, Jun Kiln Moon-White Glaze Depot, Longquan Kiln Blue-Glaze Pot, Yuan Dynasty Blue-Glazed White Dragon-pattern Pad, Ming Dynasty Yongle Hand Cup, Xuande Qinghua Sanskrit came out with halberd cover jar, Chenghua colorful chicken cup, Hongzhi yellow glaze painted gold double animal ear jar, Wanli multicolored hollowed-out cloud and phoenix pattern vase, Qing Dynasty Kangxi purple red enamel tapestry lotus pattern vase, Yongzheng enamel pheasant peony grain bowl, Qianlong all kinds of glaze vase, all belong to the old collection of Qing Gong.After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the collection of ceramics in the Palace Museum has become increasingly rich through the allocation of donations, personal donations and collection of scattered cultural relics unearthed by the relevant departments of the State, and has made up for the lack of the original collection of the Palace of Qing Dynasty in some years.

 

Today, the Palace Museum’s collection of ancient Chinese ceramics is a self-contained, more comprehensive reflection of the eight thousand years of Chinese ceramic production history, especially the five famous kilns of the Song Dynasty and Ming and Qing Dynasty, regardless of the quantity or quality, can be regarded as the first in the world.

White pottery carving gourmet pattern double ear pot, Shang, 22.1 cm high, aperture 9.1 cm, foot diameter 8.9 cm

The mouth is closed, the abdomen is micro-drum, circle foot, under the mouth is safe binaural, have symmetrical double holes on the foot.The whole body of the instrument is carved with gluttonous grain.

The object was unearthed in Anyang City, Henan Province.It is a typical instrument of white pottery of Shang Dynasty, which imitates bronze ware in both shape and decoration at that time.

Original celadon double-tied can, 13.2cm high, diameter 8.4cm

Canning mouth, folded abdomen, waist, flat bottom, both sides of the abdomen have a horizontal system.The tank body is covered with green yellow glaze.Water ripples and chords on shoulders.This jar is shaped like a fish basket, a small mouth, and a large belly to increase its volume.This is the shape characteristic of primitive porcelain in the early Western Zhou Dynasty.

At this time the glaze has become a necessary part of porcelain, not only the role of water insulation, conducive to cleaning, but also decorative objects to make it beautiful role.Glaze is a kind of vitreous body, because it contains the action of metal ions, applied to porcelain, will produce various colors.The glaze on the original celadon is blue because it contains a certain amount of ferrous oxide.

The pot was unearthed in Luoyang, Henan Province.

The original porcelain beam is 17.7cm high and 7cm wide.

He straight mouth, round abdomen, with three animal-shaped foot, flow for the animal head, the other side of the pot body decorated with a curly short tail.The lifting beam is arched, with serrated ridges at the top and four continuous ripples at the shoulders and abdomen.The shape of the object is simple and dignified, the glaze is yellow in the green, the glaze is uniform, the decoration is simple and quick, full of dynamic.

The original porcelain appeared in the early period of Shang Dynasty and flourished in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.Before the Warring States Period, due to the low technical level of the craft, raw materials were treated without fine filtration, washing, kneading, aging and other technological processes, simple modelling, many cracks in the body, glaze color is very unstable.During the Warring States Period, the production of the original porcelain made great progress, its sintering performance and the application of glazes and other aspects have been greatly developed, the shape of the device is regular, glaze thickness uniform, glaze blue-yellow, the shape of the bronze wares of the time, there are Zun, Ding, Gui, He, beans, bells, etc., the decorative more with carved, drawn,; Kneading for decoration, with a simple and concise style.

The shape of the Ho is regular, even glaze color, is the outstanding among the original porcelain.

Painted pottery pot, Han, mouth length 11.5cm, foot length 12.6cm, 39cm

The mouth of the pot and the sole of the foot are square, and the corners of the pot are pointed and the sides of the pot are each lined with ears.It is decorated with black and red-colored patterns. The neck and abdomen are painted with streamer patterns, and the rhombus stripes are used.

The shape and painted decoration of this square pot are modeled on the painted square pot of the same period.Such painted pottery in the Warring States and Western Han Dynasty tombs in the more unearthed, may be dedicated to the burial vessels.

Glazed pottery pot, Western Han Dynasty, 32.7 cm high, diameter 14.9 cm

Pot wash mouth, neck, shoulder slip, tympanum, out of foot.The outer part of the pot is covered with yellow glaze, and the shoulders and abdomen are carved with two lines of string, during which the water is painted with ripples.Glaze rich bright, simple and harmonious;The decoration layout is sparse, the description style is simple and bold, the feeling of freehand writing is very strong, which reflects the artistic style of advocating simplicity and nature at that time.

Han Dynasty glazed pottery belongs to low-temperature lead glaze, mostly green, yellow-brown or brown-red, glaze luster.The result of scientific test shows that the colorant is mainly copper and iron, which is made by burning at 700 ℃ at low temperature in oxidizing atmosphere.Copper by oxidizing flame, the glaze can be beautiful emerald green, and iron is brown or brown red.

This pottery pot is made like copper pot, the glaze layer is clear and transparent, the glaze surface is smooth, and the pattern has the unique decoration style of Han Dynasty, which fully shows the profound skill of the potter in Han Dynasty, and also embodies the achievements made by the glazed pottery decoration of Han Dynasty.

Double-series pot with blue glaze, 32.6 cm high, 14.3 cm diameter and 14 cm foot diameter.

The pot has a long neck, a long neck, a long shoulder, and a series on both sides of the shoulder.The glaze is yellow-green.The shoulder is decorated with 5 ribbons, neck, shoulder and abdomen.

The fetal quality of the original celadon in the Western Han Dynasty was generally loose, with a large number of stomata, high water absorption rate and gray or dark gray color.Its glaze layer is thick generally, tonal is partial deep, show green or yellow brown wait for a color more.The decorative pattern has the chord pattern, the water ripple, the cloud gas grain and the scratching pattern and so on, the pot, the pot and so on multi-decoration double-series or the pile pasts the first.

This pot-ware is a typical transition object from the original celadon of the Western Han Dynasty to the Eastern Han Dynasty.

Celadon double series pot, East Han Dynasty, height 24.5 cm, aperture 11.5 cm, bottom diameter 9 cm

Pot wash mouth, neck, shoulder slide, tummy, under the abdomen gradually converged, flat.A symmetrical vertical system is placed on the shoulders.The body inside and outside the application of green glaze, external wall glazing is not in the end.The neck and shoulders are marked with water ripples and the abdomen with dense chords.

This blue glaze double-series pot body is thin, the glaze layer is even and clean, belongs to just from the original porcelain out of a higher quality blue glaze, can be called China’s first porcelain.

Green glazed pottery pot, East Han Dynasty, 40.3 cm high, diameter 15.2 cm, full diameter 15.7 cm

The mouth of the ampulla, the long neck, the shoulder places the symmetry to spread the ear, hangs the abdomen, outside the abdomen lower bearing leaves the high circle foot.Ketong body with low-temperature lead green glaze, glaze is a melon skin green.The mouth, neck and abdomen are all decorated with raised strings.