CHINA WITHOUT DRAGONS

China without Dragons 龍隱：東方陶瓷學會會員稀珍藏品展 Rare Pieces from Oriental Ceramic Society Members

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Acknowledgements

The Oriental Ceramic Society (OCS) has a long history of fine exhibitions, but had not embarked on a major loan exhibition like this for more than a quarter century, since Porcelain for Palaces was held in 1990. An exhibition with a high loan value, assembled from many lenders – almost four dozen in this case – by a society that cannot boast its own premises and has at its disposal limited manpower and a small budget, is a daunting undertaking. The last exhibition nearly brought the Society to its knees and the present project seemed doomed several times before finally coming to fruition. That it eventually did is due to the determination and generosity of a small group of people.

First and foremost, I must mention two highly efficient, patient and intelligent collaborators, who together managed virtually all organizational aspects of this project: Emily Chang of Sotheby’s and David Bone acting for the OCS. Without their undaunted efforts to overcome ever new challenges, this exhibition would not have taken place. Among OCS members, the most important contribution came, of course, from those who entrusted their rare and wonderful objects to the Society for display and publication. In the immediate run-up to the exhibition, it was particularly Vaughan Hart who devoted time and thought to this project – advising on legal aspects together with Charlotte Hart, his solicitor wife, as well as on practical matters; devising the layout of the exhibition gallery; lending a hand wherever needed – and was thus invaluable in removing obstacles of all sorts. The Exhibition Committee, whose task was the selection of the objects, consisted of Jessica Harrison-Hall, Vaughan Hart, Dominic Jellinek, Regina Krahl, Baoping Li, Robert McPherson, Mary Redfern, Peter White and Nigel Wood. These and other OCS members helped further by signing pieces in or out, by manning the OCS desk during the exhibition, and by contributing to this catalogue.

This exhibition could only be mounted due to the generous support of Sotheby’s London, who provided organizational and practical help throughout all stages of the project, negotiated insurance sponsorship, handled arrival and departure of the objects, undertook insurance valuations and condition checks, set the exhibition up and took it down, printed an exhibition booklet, provided photographs for the catalogue, and gave up one of their main galleries as a superb exhibition space at one of the busiest times of the auction year, during Asian Art in London and, as it happened, concurrent with the Bowie/Collector sale. I would particularly like to mention Angela McAteer, who initiated the whole idea, Marcus Linell and Henry Howard-Sneyd, who smoothed the way between the many departments involved, and Sarah Brackley, who led the complicated insurance negotiations.

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The insurance company J. Safra Sarasin agreed to underwrite the insurance cover of the objects while on display at Sotheby’s, and thus allowed the Society to meet the basic precondition without which an exhibition of such standard would not have been possible.

The photographs for this catalogue were provided by Sotheby’s, by Regina Krahl and by the lenders. Baoping Li translated the captions into Chinese and Alison Effeny improved the text by her careful and sensitive copy-editing.

Rosanne Chan of CA Design took a very personal interest in the layout and oversaw the production of this beautiful publication.

Direct financial sponsorship of the exhibition and catalogue was received from John Bodie Bill Carey Giuseppe Eskenazi Sir Joseph Hotung David and Anne Hyatt King Marion and Sam Marsh Song Tao The Sir Percival David Foundation Academic & Research Fund On behalf of the OCS, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and thanks to each and all of these individuals, institutions and companies for their generous support of this project.

Regina Krahl Former President Oriental Ceramic Society

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Sancai Wares 三彩釉

Sancai (‘three colour’) glazes characterize Tang (618–907) ceramics like no other style. Green and amber-brown glazes had been used as early as the Han dynasty (206 bc–ad 220), but in the Tang, the coating of the ceramic body with a white slip before the glazes were applied intensified these colours to a bright leaf-green and various tones of yellow. The introduction of a third ‘colour’ – a transparent glaze that turned the slip a creamy white – made the style a highly popular classic.

While sancai pottery was not particularly well suited for use in daily life due to its porosity and the potential harmfulness of the lead-bearing glazes, its spectacular aspect made it most desirable for luxurious burials (15–17). The most important kilns so far identified are the Gongxian kilns, of Gongyi in Henan province, but similar wares were probably made in many kiln centres during the Tang.

In the Northern Song (960–1127) and Jin (1115–1234) periods, we see the sancai colour scheme used particularly for fanciful, decorative pillows (18–20), largely made in northern China. It had also come into use for roof and wall tiles to pick out important secular and religious buildings, such as the Nanjing ‘Porcelain Pagoda’ (21, 22), and for figures of deities (23, 32). Architectural ceramics were generally made not too far from where they were needed.

Although from the early 15th century onwards many other glaze colours were available, the sancai colour combination did not lose its popularity. On high-fired stonewares and porcelains, these lead glazes with their low firing temperatures required a second firing and could be applied either on the fully fired but unglazed biscuit or onto glazed white porcelain. Yellow, green and aubergine glazes were employed, both in combination and individually, for fine imperial porcelains (24–29) as well as for inventively shaped non-imperial desk items (30, 33–38), and even for figures intended for export to the West (31, 39), all made at Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province.

ReK

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15 三彩釉陶生肖馬俑

Sancai -glazed pottery figure of the horse from the Chinese zodiac 唐 7-8世紀 河南（或鞏義鞏縣窯）

Henan province, perhaps Gongxian kilns, Gongyi Tang dynasty, 7th or 8th century height 22.2 cm

With a horse’s head and a human body in scholar’s robes, this figure would originally have formed part of a set of twelve different zodiac animal figures, but no other figure of this or any similar set appears to be preserved, and no other example of such sculptural quality is known. The association of the Twelve Earthly Branches of the Chinese calendrical system with different animals seems to date back at least to the Warring States period (475–221 bc), but ceramic zodiac figures do not appear before the late Northern Wei period (386–534), when they were still unglazed.

ReK Provenance Eskenazi Limited, London.

Private collection, New York.

Exhibitions Tang Ceramic Sculpture, Eskenazi Ltd, New York, 2001, cat. no. 10 and catalogue frontispiece.

Publications Giuseppe Eskenazi with Hajni Elias, A Dealer’s Hand. The Chinese Art World Through the Eyes of Giuseppe Eskenazi, London, 2012, pl. 235.

Regina Krahl, ‘China without Dragons. An Exhibition of the Oriental Ceramic Society’, Orientations, November/December 2016, p. 93, fig. 2.

Comparisons Judy Chungwa Ho, ‘The Twelve Calendrical Animals in Tang Tombs’, in George Kuwayama, ed., Ancient Mortuary Traditions of China, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1991, pp. 60–83 (discussion and various examples, including a glazed figure from a Sui tomb, 581–618).

La voie du Tao. Un autre chemin de l’être, Galeries nationales, Grand Palais, Paris, 2010, cat. no. 7.1 (unglazed Northern Wei set of zodiac figures, 386–534).

‘Yangzhou Situmiaozhen qingli yizhuo Tangdai muzang’ [Excavation of a Tang tomb at Situmiaozhen near Yangzhou], Kaogu, 1985, vol. 9, pl. 6 (incomplete set with unglazed heads and sancai robes).

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16 三彩釉陶飛鶴紋脈枕

Sancai -glazed pottery pulse pillow with a crane in flight 唐 7-8世紀早期 河南鞏義鞏縣窯

Gongxian kilns, Gongyi, Henan province Tang dynasty, 7th or early 8th century width 12.5 cm

Decorated with a very small crane – symbol of long life – in the centre among the archetypal Tang (618–907) arabesque motifs, this small pillow was made during the peak period of sancai ceramics. On the top, the designs were deeply incised in order to separate the green, amber and transparent glazes, which around the sides were deliberately combined into a mottled pattern.

These small pillows, believed to have been used to rest the arm while the pulse is taken, are often particularly carefully designed and executed.

ReK Comparisons Zhongguo chutu ciqi quanji/Complete Collection of Ceramic Art Unearthed in China, vol. 6, Beijing, 2008, pl. 65 (related pillow with a bird standing, excavated from a tomb in Chengjiaotou cemetery, Zhangqiu, Shandong).

Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994–2010, vol. 1, cat. nos 274–7 (four related pulse pillows).

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126 青花漁樵圖獅紐瓷蓋盒

Blue-and-white porcelain oval box and cover with a modelled lion knob and painted figures 明 萬曆後期或天啓 江西景德鎮

Jingdezhen kilns, Jiangxi province Ming dynasty, late Wanli (1573–1620) or Tianqi (1621–1627) period length 15 cm

Oval boxes of the late Ming period (1368–1644) are known with domed covers without knobs, but the present form appears to be unrecorded.

The motifs of fisherman and brushwood gatherer were archetypal ideals of China’s literati bureaucrats that were particularly alluring in times of dynastic decline: they represented the wish to turn one’s back on the seats of power and lead a simple life in the countryside, in tune with nature. On this box, the small seated lion which forms the knob turns its back to the viewer, who looks at the painted design.

ReK Comparisons Kraak Porcelain. The Rise of Global Trade in the Late 16th and Early 17th Centuries, Jorge Welsh, London, 2008, cat. no. 24 and fig. 24a (oval box with domed cover, and Dutch still-life painting with similar box by Willem Claesz Heda, 1650s).

Jean-Paul Desroches, Gabriel Casal and Franck Goddio, eds, Die Schätze der San Diego, Veröffentlichungen des Museums für Völkerkunde, Berlin, 1997, cat. nos 128 and 129 (two of several blue-and-white oval covered boxes from the wreck of the San Diego, which sank in 1600).

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