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Indepth Arts News:
"Treasures From an Unknown Reign: Shunzi Porcelain"
2002-10-03 until 2003-01-05
Crow Collection of Asian Art
Dallas, TX,
USA United States of America
Treasures From an Unknown Reign: Shunzi Porcelain‰, a major exhibition
of 87 porcelain objects produced during the reign of Shunzhi (1644-61),
a child-emperor and the first emperor of the Qing dynasty of China, will
open Thursday, Oct. 3 at The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of
Asian Art, 2010 Flora St. in the Arts District of downtown Dallas.
The exhibition is organized and circulated by
Art Services International, Alexandria, Virginia, and is generously
supported by a grant from the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter
Foundation.
Until the 1980s, Shunzhi's reign had been neglected by scholars and
researchers in China and the West. During this era, exports were
greatly reduced and Imperial porcelain was not produced. However,
scholarly findings and a series of exhibitions since the early 1980s,
validated by the recovery of a Chinese shipwreck containing 23,000
porcelains, has now enabled scholars to accurately date porcelains to
the Shunzhi Emperor‚s reign. Current scholarly research as well as
Captain Hatcher's shipwreck discovery has inspired this first exhibition
to describe the major evolution of porcelain painting and shapes that
took place between 1644 and 1662. Treasures from an Unknown Reign:
Shunzhi Porcelain proves that, in fact, innovative and beautiful objects
were made in response to demand from the literati (scholars) and
merchants on China‚s east coast. Porcelains in the exhibition have been
drawn from public and private collections in England, France and the
United States, including the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the Victoria and
Albert museum, London and the Butler Family Collection, the largest and
most comprehensive collection of 17th-century Chinese porcelain in the
world. This exhibition premiered in Honolulu at the Honolulu Academy of
Arts (May 2-Sept. 8, 2002) and travels from the Crow Collection in
Dallas to Charlottesville's University of Virginia Art Museum (Jan.
25-March 23, 2003).
The works in the exhibition were selected by Dr. Stephen Little,
Pritzker Curator of Asian Art at The Art Institute of Chicago; Sir
Michael Butler, diplomat, collector and author of 17th-century porcelain
publications; and Julia B. Curtis, independent scholar of Chinese
ceramics.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a major 252-page, full-color
catalogue, published and distributed by Art Services International of
Alexandria, Virginia.
Precisely dating mid-17th century Chinese wares, which bear no date or
reign mark, as produced during the Shunzhi Emperor's reign is a
scholarly challenge. The 17th century was the last period of Chinese
porcelain production that remained extensively unexplored˜and the 17
years of Shunzhi's reign were the least well-known of all. While only a
few porcelains were dated from the late Ming dynasty (immediately
preceding Shunzhi‚s reign), and from the Kangxi era (the second Qing
dynasty emperor who succeeded Shunzhi), the few interim years were
uncharted. Scholars now confidently assert that the ceramics produced
during Shunzi's reign are quite distinguishable from earlier and later
porcelains.
The conquest of China in 1644 by the Manchus, who founded the new Qing
dynasty, led to civil war and the disruption of established markets for
Chinese porcelain. But the best potters and painters succeeded in
finding boosted patronage among the literati (scholar-gentry) and the
increasingly affluent merchants and collectors of Anhui province and the
Yangzi valley. The literati had benefited from the inflation of the
late-1600s, enabling them to become even more important as patrons than
they had been earlier in the Ming dynasty. In addition, the falling
prestige of the emperor and court, coupled with inflation, expanded the
ranks of the merchant classes and encouraged them to emulate the
patronage of the literati rather than to follow the Emperor‚s tastes.
Thus, many objects of great beauty were made for the tastes of these new
connoisseurs, designed to be looked upon as works of art.
Innovative colors, shapes and painted scenes evolved into a singular
style now recognized as Shunzhi. Blue-and-white and wucai (underglaze
blue and five-color enamels) porcelain predominate, and depict figures,
animals, mythical beasts, plants and flowers. The Shunzhi
potter-painter excelled in the development of a landscape painting type
known as "master-of-the-rocks" and also depicted narrative themes based
on plays, novels and folktales from Chinese history. The exhibition
begins with four works from the Hatcher cargo, a 1643 Chinese shipwreck
that was salvaged out of the South China Sea by Captain Michael Hatcher
in the early in 1980s, containing 23,000 thousand pieces, a few of which
were exactly dated to 1643 (the last year before Shunzhi became
emperor.) With such a specific date provided, these works are an art
historical reference point, advancing growing scholarly interest and
knowledge in this period. The exhibition also includes two works dated
from the mid-1660s, in order to demonstrate how the shapes of pots and
the styles of painting gradually evolved from the late Ming dynasty,
through Shunzhi's reign, into the subsequent Kangxi reign. Also on view
will be a wide variety of rare monochromes in white, yellow, lavender
and deep and light blue.
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