Dish

Object Details

• Description

  Dish: large export type, everted rim.

  Clay: white porcelain, heavily potted; burned brick-red where exposed in circular scar from firing stand.

  Glaze: fine green celadon, matte, footrim and base covered except for bare red ring.

  Decoration: moulded, carved and appliqued under the glaze; floral and scroll motifs; eleven five-petalled florets sprigged on rim; freely carved scroll (eight units) in cavetto. Peony in moulded relief in cneter bottom within a band of carved curved fluting.

• Label

  This large, sturdy dish may have been produced at the Dayao kiln in Longquan, a source of many celadon bowls and dishes during the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368). Dayao products were widely exported; dishes like this one are found in the collection of the Topkapi Saray Museum in Istanbul. The size of the dish suits Persian culinary traditions better than Chinese practices, suggesting that it was intended for export.

  The belief that the dead should be interred with objects to provide for their needs in the afterlife encouraged inexpensive ceramic reproductions of precious goods, especially bronze and lacquer vessels, to be made for entombment. Some celadon-glazed ceramics recovered from tombs represent special adaptations of everyday pots, such as storage vessels, but objects for burial are often decorated with cosmological symbols.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Chinese Ceramics: 13th–14th Century (December 20, 2014 to January 3, 2016)

  Shades of Green and Blue: Chinese Celadon Ceramics (July 15, 1997 to September 7, 2004)

  Crosscurrents in Chinese and Islamic Ceramics (March 1, 1996 to July 1, 1997)

  Chinese Ceramics (April 11, 1978 to September 4, 1980)

• Origin

  Probably Dayao kiln, Longquan, Zhejiang province, China

• Credit Line

  Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment

• Type

  Vessel

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

  There are restrictions for re-using this media. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1300s

• Place

  China, Zhejiang province, Dayao kiln, Longquan

• Topic

  Art, Peony, Green glaze, Stoneware, Chinese Art, Longquan ware, Yuan dynasty (1279 - 1368), Ceramics, Flowers

• Culture

  Chinese

• Object Type

  Vessels (containers)