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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Blue-and-white dish with bunches of grapes

  • loan

Glossary (2)

porcelain, underglaze painting

  • porcelain

    Ceramic material composed of kaolin, quartz, and feldspar which is fired to a temperature of c.1350-1400⁰c. The resulting ceramic is vitreous, translucent, and white in colour.

  • underglaze painting

    Painting applied to ceramic material before a transparent, or monochrome or coloured glaze for Islamic objects, is applied. The technique was initially developed in China.

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

    This dish shows the so-called ‘heaping and piling’ effect characteristic of the Yongle and Xuande (1426–1435) reigns, resulting from dark specks of cobalt which have burnt through the glaze. Although it is a flaw which the potters soon had under control, it was in the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) deliberately copied, since it was associated with these early wares, which have remained the most desirable blue-and-white porcelains to this day.

    The deep dish has rounded sides and an everted rim. The foot is of V-shaped section. The piece is painted in a deep cobalt blue with a central grape vine bearing three large bunches of grapes among leaves, curling tendrils and whithered stems which do not bear fruit, the sides with a composite flower scroll consisting of morning glory, carnation, rose, chrysanthemum, pomegranate, hibiscus, lotus, camellia and other flowers and the rim with a powerful wave border of undulating lines alternating with eddies and reserved white crests. The outside shows a similar flower scroll including lingzhi, while the rim is plain. The unglazed foot and base have fired a light yellowish-beige tone. The base is inscribed in ink with an Arabic inscription in a delicate hand, and engraved with an owner’s mark in form of three pierced dots, which is repeated on the outside of the foot.

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