The piece is a zun vessel, and Blue-and-white with underglaze red is the technique that decides how it reads. The pattern is laid before firing, so the colour sits under a clear glaze, protected and luminous rather than painted on top.
A zun vessel of this kind was made to be seen closely and from afar at once. The blue-and-white with underglaze red ground rewards the near view; the silhouette does the work across a room.
The Imperial court understood porcelain as a statement of capacity. To fire a zun vessel without a flaw was to prove the workshop, and behind it the state, could do the impossible reliably.
The blue-and-white with underglaze red zun vessel is a quiet lesson in Chinese taste: control of fire first, beauty second, and the two arriving together. Sinocra carries the work, with more from The Palace Museum, in the shop.
Object details
| Name | Blue and white underglaze red double chi eared statue with twining lotus pattern (青花釉里红缠枝莲纹双螭耳尊) |
|---|---|
| Artefact no. | 故00149909 |
| Technique | Blue-and-white with underglaze red (青花釉里红) |
| Period | Imperial dynasty |
| 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.