Terms and conditions of use
Pouring bowl
(Qing hua yuan yang he hua yi青花鴛鴦荷花匜)
(14th century)
- Medium
- porcelain (blue and white ware)
- Measurements
- 4.3 × 17.3 × 13.8 cm
- Place/s of Execution
- Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, south-east China, China
- Accession Number
- 429-D5
- Department
- Asian Art
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1962
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Gordon Darling Foundation - Gallery location
- 17th Century & Flemish Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International - About this work
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The earliest Chinese blue-and-white porcelains known are temple vases inscribed with the date 1351. These display a competence indicating that the underglaze-painting technique was well established by that time, probably originating in the second quarter of the fourteenth century. Cobalt ore (named Huihui qing, 回回青, ‘Islamic blue’) was imported from Iran and ground into a pigment, which was painted directly onto the porcelain body. The piece was then glazed and fired. Blue-and-white wares such as this pouring bowl appealed to the Mongol Yuan rulers, and were used in temples and occasionally in burials within China. Large quantities were exported to Western Asia.