This brush washer belongs to the long argument about Chinese porcelain: a porcelain body, thrown, glazed and fired until the surface turns to glass. the Guang ware workshop that made it treated whiteness and colour as a single problem to be solved in the kiln.
What looks like decoration is also a record. The motif was chosen, not incidental, and on a court vessel a repeat pattern is a way of saying order without using words.
Chinese ceramics carried the weight of a civilisation that measured its courts by what they could fire.
A brush washer like this outlived the hands that made it. It is why a porcelain vessel from the Guang ware dynasty (Ming to Qing) still reads as a small piece of statecraft, fired and then forgotten by everyone but the collector.
Object details
| Name | Guangyao catalpa leaf type washer (广窑楸叶式洗) |
|---|---|
| Artefact no. | 新00105319 |
| Technique | Imperial workshop |
| Period | Guang ware dynasty (Ming to Qing) |
| Collection | The Palace Museum, Beijing |
| Source | Palace Museum Digital Collection (数字文物库) |
Image © The Palace Museum. View the original in the Palace Museum Digital Collection.