Chinese Porcelain

Three entries in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition "Women Cross Media: Photography, Porcelain and Prints from China and Japan," as part of the project "Dresden • Europe • Welt", on display March 3 to June 5, 2017. Residenzschloss, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany.

明代藩王功臣墓出土至正樣式青花器的年代問題

本文試從藝術史角度切入，以紋飾系統化分析的方法，試解決20世紀50年代以來出
土於明代藩王功臣墓葬中至正樣式青花器的年代問題。本文將裝飾於青花器表的紋飾分為三
個層次分析，分別為：單一紋樣結構分析、紋樣與紋樣結組方式分析、以及整體紋飾整合方
式分析。藉此反思過去學界所依賴美國學者John Alexander Pope的元青花風格分析主張，以修
正青花至正樣式發展的年代下限。


"Re-Dating the “Yuan” Blue-and-White Porcelain Excavated
from Noble Tombs in the Ming Dynasty"

This essay examines the blue-and-white wares excavated from the tombs of
generals and princes in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Based on John Alexander Pope’s
definition of “fourteenth-century blue-and-white style,” the excavated wares have long
been recognized as products of the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), and thus considered to be
antiques or booty from the battles of the dead. However, the style of these wares can be
differentiated from the “fourteenth-century blue-and-white style” in terms of ornament
pattern and decoration composition. By referring to other well-dated Ming blue-andwhite
porcelain with similar ornament and the dating of these tombs, this essay suggests
that the excavated wares were from the Ming instead of Yuan dynasty.

registration for the upcoming Early High-Technology Ceramics Meeting is open http://bit.ly/2nzsr8V! There are a range of excellent papers on the schedule (see list of titles and authors below - N.B. not in running order) for the 27th April 2017 and we look forward to welcoming you to the Institute once again. 
Registration is open till the 20th April but early registration is recommended as we are a little more limited on space this year. The cost of registration will be £10 (to cover lunch and refreshments) and we will collect this at registration on the day.

This paper presents ceramics excavated during the archaeological survey at the Wisłoujście Fortress in seasons 2013–2014. A total number of 7527 ceramics has been analysed and presented in the form of descriptions, statistics, tables, drawings and photographs. The assembly consists of numerous potsherds, candlestick, crucible, marbles, figurines and a bottle stopper. The assembly has been dated to the period between the 15th and 20th centuries. The presented ceramics were produced by local as well as by German, Dutch, Italian, English and Asian craftsmen. The coherent stratighraphical contexts of finding two sub-assemblages dated to the 18th and 19th centuries were examined. These particular artefacts were used by inhabitants of the Fortress during two different
geopolitical contexts. Results of the research prompt for further study in the field of the use of everyday objects by the fortress’ garrison.

A taste for Chinese design was manifested in Iranian objects commissioned by Armenian traders in seventeenth-century Isfahan. A century later, their scions dispersed along trade routes and many settled in India. Between the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth century these Indian Armenians placed orders for ‘Chinese export wares’ featuring signs of their Armenian ethnicity. Living within European cultural horizons, they adapted to western modes and sometimes used Latin monograms. Dignitaries of the Armenian millet under the Ottoman sultan also indulged in Chinese luxuries, which reflect the destinies of Armenian communities both in their Caucasian homeland and in diaspora.

The adoption of a Chinese aesthetic represents an eighteenth-century method of negotiating cultural value, particularly of the Chinese taste. Added to this, it offered eighteenth-century people a method of exploring the union of the dissimilar. Both the authentic and the inauthentic, Chinese objects and China itself, in its geographical and socio-cultural distance and its simultaneous proximity through objects on the mantelpiece, was a between-place: known and unknown; distant yet domestic. It was, simultaneously, vast and Imperial China and small and fragile china. These are not simple binaries, as China represented all of these versions of China, and more. The material metonymies imported into English environments created a metonymic gap: the objects become synecdochic of the original culture, whilst complexities of interpretation created a gap between place of origin and place of display. Because China was seen as an alternative, alien but recognisably civilised culture, this liminal gap became a location for intercultural exchange. The Bankses regarded this point of exchange as uniting the best of cultures and technologies in a process of ultimate advancement. Cross-cultural influences shaped the techniques and styles in which texts and artworks were being produced, resulting in new methods and media for production, whilst the mode and nature of collecting offers a way of reading the tensions and multiplicities of Occidental-Oriental interaction. The Chinese aesthetic demonstrates an urge to understand and to memorialise, an outward-looking gaze that provokes thinking and analysis, whilst simultaneously offering a means of solipsism and introspection.

Article on the ceramic designs of the contemporary artist Pepijn van den Nieuwendijk, published in Vormen uit Vuur, the Dutch journal on glass and ceramics. Van den Nieuwendijk has created a cartoonesk, humorous, mythical and morbid personal iconography: the 'Cirque de Pepin'. This article discusses how the artist is inspired by traditional Chinese and Dutch/Delft porcelain, and how these inspirations are expressed in his ceramic sculptures.

In May 1936 the steamship Sorrento sailed into the port of Piraeus, Greece. Aboard were sixteen crates with 452 items of Chinese pottery, destined to join another 341 already on display at the Benaki Museum in Athens. Over the past nine years the museum’s founder, Antonis Benakis, had been in contact with their donor, Greek-origin British businessman George Eumorfopoulos. His Chinese art collection was one of the most extensive the world had ever seen. In bestowing this gift, Eumorfopoulos wanted to introduce Greeks to the art of China through its best-known medium at the time, ceramics.

The years after the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911 witnessed an ‘opening up’ of China and the first archaeological excavations of its ancient cultures. A circle of enthusiasts and scholars, among which Eumorfopoulos was pivotal, grasped the opportunity to evaluate anew long-held preconceptions on Chinese civilisation. Situated in London, a centre of imperialist power and global finance, they acquired, assessed, and interpreted previously-unseen and fascinating objects. In addition, Eumorfopoulos acted as an intermediary between the contemporary art scene and Chinese antiquities, inspiring modern artists and ‘studio potters’.

China Rediscovered: The Benaki Museum Collection of Chinese Ceramics traces the roles ceramics assumed in this cultural interplay within the context of earlier encounters between China and the rest of the world. A selection of 88 items from the Benaki Museum are perceived as ‘actors’ within constantly evolving ‘sets’, as players in a game of knowledge, taste, and power.