Blue-and-white covered box with floral and geometric designs
Kiln Unknown, Vietnam
Description
March 28, 2009
These covered boxes with blue underglaze painting are examples of the prime wares exported from Vietnam to the Southeast Asian island countries. Although blue-and-white stonewares were first produced exclusively in China, increasing demand from the international market made the Vietnamese kilns highly competitive in the production of less expensive types. Not unlike the international car industry in the modern era, it was common for these kilns to copy their rivals’ popular models and sell them at cheaper prices. Blue-and-white shards of Chinese Ming wares have been found at kiln sites in Vietnam and in Thailand, another major competitor. The covered box with chrysanthemum design shown here is almost an exact copy of a Ming porcelain.
(Label for UMMA South and Southest Asia Gallery Opening Rotation, March 2009)
Subject Matter:
Covered boxes were used as burial objects to accompany the dead. This practice for the care of deceased people in afterlife preceded the succession of foreign religious influence from Buddhism, Hinduism to Islam. The stoneware trade ceramics were also objects of status and wealth, for the local kilns only produced less durable and inexpensive earthernwares. The round shape with a handle, and some of the design motifs were adopted from stone and metal reliquaries and architectural elements came with Indian Hinduism and Buddhism.
Physical Description:
A melon-shaped stoneware box with a lid, the shape slightly faceted on the sides and the lid concave to a disk-shape center. The box is decorated with freehand floral and geometric designs in blue cobalt pigment, and then a whitish glaze was applied to the whole.
Usage Rights:
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