Chinese pottery and porcelain; vol. 1. Pottery and early waresHobson, R. L. (Robert Lockhart)
History
Chinese pottery and porcelain; vol. 1. Pottery and early wares
Hobson, R. L. (Robert Lockhart)
Porcelain, Chinese; Pottery, Chinese
Reverting to the engraved T´ang ornament, there is a little oblong box
in the Kunstgewerbe Museum at Berlin with incised rosettes of prunus
blossom form, glazed white and yellow in a green ground and finished
almost with the neatness of Ch´ien Lung porcelain, but of undoubtedly
T´ang origin. The same prunus design occurs on a typical T´ang bowl, in
the Eumorfopoulos Collection, stencilled white in a green ground. I have
postponed reference to these pieces because of the bearing of the latter
on the decoration of the wonderful figure illustrated in the frontispiece,
which will make a fitting climax to our series of T´ang specimens.
This figure, with its stand, measures 50 inches in height, and represents
one of sixteen Lohan or Arhats, the Buddhist apostles. Its provenance
has been kept discreetly concealed,[58] but we may infer that it was
taken from a temple or mausoleum, and we know that there were others
with it, two of which were exhibited at the Musée Cernuschi, in Paris,
in June, 1913. This one, however, has the advantage over the others of
being complete with its pottery stand. The ware is white and comparatively
hard; the colourless glaze on the fleshy parts has acquired a brown
stain from the dripping of the cave moisture, and developed a minute
crackle, both of which features are observable on some of the glazed
vases from T'ang tombs; the pupils of the eyes are black. The draperies,
of which the flowing folds are worthy of the finest classic sculpture,
are glazed with mottled green, the upper robe with brownish yellow, both
of T'ang type, and the latter is patched (in true Buddhist fashion) with
green-edged bands with white designs resembling divided prunus blossoms in
a yellow ground, in style recalling the decoration of the bowl previously
mentioned. The technique, then, is that of the T'ang wares, but instead of
being made in a mould like the grave statuettes, this monumental figure
is modelled in the round by an artist worthy to rank with the masters of
sculpture and painting who made the T'ang period famous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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