This ewer belongs to the long argument about Chinese porcelain: a underglaze red porcelain body, thrown, glazed and fired until the surface turns to glass. the Imperial 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 dragon 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 ewer like this outlived the hands that made it. It is why a underglaze red porcelain vessel from the Imperial dynasty still reads as a small piece of statecraft, fired and then forgotten by everyone but the collector.
Object details
| Name | Four-series flat kettle with red underglaze ground and white flowers engraved with cloud and dragon patterns (釉里红地白花暗刻云龙纹四系扁壶) |
|---|---|
| Artefact no. | 新00143110 |
| Technique | Underglaze red porcelain (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.