Description:
Historical ceramics made in or traded into (therefore in, not simply of) Mainland Southeast Asia, principally between the tenth and twentieth centuries, are the focus of this catalogue. The completed catalogue presents nearly 900 ceramics in the collections of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the scope of which encompasses places of production in Mainland Southeast Asia—the modern countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Burma (Myanmar)—as well as southern China. Individual objects and regional ceramic groups also represent the importance of the export of wares made in the mainland to insular Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines) as well as further afield to Japan and West Asia.
The study of ceramics in Mainland Southeast Asia is a young field that has gained critical momentum only within the past few decades. “Established” knowledge in the field is regularly transformed by new work on associating wares with places of production, characterizing technological lineages, defining chronology and stylistic development, and charting patterns of distribution and trade. The fluidity of the field and the wish to respond to evolving knowledge encouraged the decision to publish this catalogue in online form. Its goal is to frame the objects in the collections—and elsewhere—within evolving current knowledge based on archaeology of production sites, consumption sites, and shipwrecks and reevaluation of historical constructs, as well as within broad discussions of identity, technological development and transfer, regional economics, and trade. The presentation emphasizes the cultural, technological, and commercial roles of ceramics within the region, with a goal of raising questions that might be addressed by future research.
