Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

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Greenware maebyong, or plum blossom, vase with cranes

  • loan

Glossary (4)

glaze, lacquer, slip, stoneware

  • glaze

    Vitreous coating applied to the surface of a ceramic to make it impermeable or for decorative effect.

  • lacquer

    Chinese and Japanese lacquer is made from the sap of the lacquer tree, which is indigenous to Eastern China. It is applied to wood as a varnish or for decorative effect. In India and the Middle East, lacquer is made from the deposit of the lac insect.

  • slip

    A semi-fluid clay applied to a ceramic before glazing either to coat the surface or for decorative effect.

  • stoneware

    Ceramic material made of clay which is fired to a temperature of c.1200-1300⁰c and is often buff or grey in colour.

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Publications online

  • The Barlow Collection by the University of Sussex

    The Barlow Collection

    The vase has a wide bulging shoulder and tapers to a slender body, which widens again very slightly at the base, resting on a broad shallow footring. The narrow mouth has an everted angular rim. The shoulder is inlaid in white slip with a band of pendant overlapping ruyi-like petals, the body with three white cranes in flight, with beaks, crests and legs inlaid in contrasting black, surrounded by six white cloud motifs, with a white slanting key-fret border at the base. The light green glaze is crackled and has shrivelled on the base, and leaves the footring exposed in the brown-burnt biscuit. A long gilt repair is probably hiding a firing crack.

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