Vase in the Shape of an Archaic Jade 'Cong' Ritual Implement

Gallery Text

Chinese ceramic wares made in Song dynasty (960–1279) court taste are esteemed for their refined forms, subtle decoration, and soft, muted glaze colors. Buoyed by national peace, economic prosperity, and the rise of a highly educated civil official class, local ceramics industries throughout China began to thrive and innovate at unprecedented levels.

Kilns seeking to supply household wares to their highly cultured clientele often created pieces that were reminiscent of other precious items. For example, northern Ding wares, with their decorative designs and thin bodies, were often compared to silverwork, while the thick green glazes coating southern Longquan wares brought carved jades to mind. Although natural forms were popular, like those inspired by flower blossoms, government officials, who had attained their positions through long study of ancient texts and history, were especially drawn to ceramics that resembled the bronzes and jades of antiquity. Courtly taste in China would change drastically after the Song, shifting toward brightly decorated blue-and-white porcelains, invented at Jingdezhen in the fourteenth century and manufactured at the same kilns that produced the delicate blue-tinged white wares known as qingbai.

Identification and Creation

Object Number: 1991.275
Title: Vase in the Shape of an Archaic Jade 'Cong' Ritual Implement
Classification: Vessels
Work Type: vessel
Date: Qianlong period, 1736 - 1795
Places: Creation Place: East Asia, China, Jiangxi province, Jingdezhen
Period: Qing dynasty, 1644-1911
Culture: Chinese
Persistent Link: https://hvrd.art/o/201807

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Jingdezhen 'Guan'-type ware: porcelain with crackled, grayish blue, 'guan'-type glaze; with underglaze cobalt blue mark reading 'Da Qing Qianlongnian zhi' in seal-script characters on the base

Technique

Celadon

Dimensions

H. 27.0 x W. 13.1 x D. 13.1 cm (10 5/8 x 5 3/16 x 5 3/16 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

inscription: Underglaze cobalt-blue mark reading "Da Qing Qianlong nian zhi" in seal-script characters on the base

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History: [Christie's, New York (by 1990)] sold; to Ralph C. Marcove, M.D., New York (by 1990-1991), gift; to Harvard University Art Museums, 1991.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line: Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Ralph C. Marcove, M.D.
Accession Year: 1991
Object Number: 1991.275
Division: Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact: am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions: The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Descriptions

Description: Square in section, this tall vase has a circular footring and a short, circular neck with lightly flaring walls. The vase is strongly archaistic in character, its shape deriving from an archaic ritual jade implement and its cracked grayish-blue glaze descending from imperial guan ware of the Southern Song period (1127-1279). The form was inspired by that of an archaic jade cong, a tube-like ritual implement that is square in section but that is perforated lengthwise by a cylindrical opening. The cong had appeared already in Neolithic times and was said by early writers to have been used in paying homage to the spirits of the earth. The height and the linear relief markings suggest that this vase follows a Neolithic Liangzhu-culture jade prototype from the third millennium BCE; although the eighteenth-century designer of this vase and the people who used it would have recognized the jade prototype as archaic, they would most likely have associated it with the Zhou dynasty (ca. 1050-221 BCE) rather than with a Neolithic culture, a concept unknown to them. The shape was first appropriated for flower vases during the Southern Song period in guan and Longquan wares. This vase differs from its Neolithic jade prototype 1) in having a solid base so that the vessel can hold water for the display of flowers; 2) in having straight, vertical walls rather than the slightly inclined walls of early cong; 3) in having walls that are wider in relation to the height seen in early cong, so that the overall proportions are less attenuated than those of a jade cong; and 4) in having the linear relief marks arranged in the trigrams of the 'Yijing" (Book of Changes) rather than the abstract, stylized masks seen on most cong. The vase differs from Southern Song cong-shaped guan-ware vases 1) in its much larger size; 2) in its arrangement of the relief markings in a pattern of trigrams; 3) in having a white porcelain body rather than a dark gray stoneware body; and 4) in its use of an imperial mark ont he base. The interior of the vase is completely covered with the same thick, light grayish-blue glaze that covers the exterior. A bold crackle pattern in charcoal-gray enlivens the glaze on the exterior and harmonizes with a delicate subsidiary crackle pattern in rust brown. The base is fully glazed, save the bottom of the footring, which was dressed with a dark grayish-brown slip to conceal the exposed porcelain body. This type of crackled grayish-blue glaze first appeared in the imperial guan ware of the Southern Song period. The guan glaze did not find favor with the Ming (1368-1644) rulers, who prefered the brighter colors of blue-and-white and/or polychrome-enamel-decorated porcelains, but it remained popular with the Ming literati whose taste for subtle monochrome wares descended from that of the Song court. The glaze regained imperial favor in the early eighteenth century when the court sought to not only perpetuate the imperial trappings of the MIng emperors but to appropriate the symbols of the literati, so that the emperors were presented as both scholars and rulers -- i.e., as perfect Confucian rulers. The underglaze cobalt-blue mark in seal-script characters on the base reads "Da Qing Qianlongnian zhi" (Made during the Qianlong reign of the Great Qing dynasty).

Exhibition History

Masterworks of East Asian Painting, Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 11/03/1995 - 06/09/1996
A Decade of Collecting: Asian Acquisitions 1990-1999, Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 03/11/2000 - 11/05/2000
Streams and Mountains without End: Landscape Paintings from China, Korea, and Japan, Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 11/25/2000 - 08/26/2001
Rocks, Mountains, Landscapes and Gardens: The Essence of East Asian Painting ('04), Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 01/31/2004 - 08/01/2004
A Compelling Legacy: Masterworks of East Asian Painting, Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/24/2004 - 03/20/2005
Forging the New: East Asian Painting in the Twentieth Century, Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 05/03/2005 - 10/16/2005
Downtime, Harvard University Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 04/28/2007 - 04/20/2008
Re-View: S228-230 Arts of Asia, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 05/31/2008 - 06/01/2013
32Q: 2600 East Asian, Japanese, Chinese and Korean, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/13/2020
Objects of Addiction: Opium, Empire, and the Chinese Art Trade, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 09/15/2023 - 01/14/2024

Subjects and Contexts

Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

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1991.275: Vase in the Shape of an Archaic Jade 'Cong' Ritual Implement