Dish with Imperial Inscription

CultureChinese

DateNorthern Song dynasty (960-1127)

MediumJun ware, stoneware with high-silica glaze

DimensionsOverall: 1 1/2 × 6 5/8 inches (3.81 × 16.83 cm)

Credit LineGift of Dr. and Mrs. Maurice H. Cottle

Object number73-22

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

East Asian Art

Terms

Gallery Label

Some five hundred years after it was fired, this dish came to the attention of the emperor Qianlong, the last great ruler of the Qing dynasty. No doubt Qianlong lovingly turned it over in his hands as he admired its lavender glaze. A poet, calligrapher, and the greatest collector in the history of China, Qianlong was compulsive about inscribing works in his collection. In this case a palace artisan was commanded to carve away the glaze exposing the stoneware body and to inscribe what was probably the emperor’s own composition: “Blues wrested from a thousand peaks. Inscribed by imperial command on a spring day, 1777.”

Provenance

Dr. and Mrs. Maurice H. Cottle;

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1973.

Published References

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 297 (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 340, pl. 176 (repro.).

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