Day 66 - Chinese vase from Qing dynasty
July 5, 2018
When I checked the museum map, I felt very happy that my Asian journey is beginning with Chinese porcelains, since I have so often passed these display cases and marveled at the beauty of their contents. It seemed like an auspicious omen. Upon arriving at the museum, I find that the porcelains occupy six galleries! I hope I will have the same feelings of wonder and admiration when I reach Gallery 206 as I do today in Gallery 200.
The gallery houses porcelains collected by Benjamin Altman, the merchant magnate who established the B. Altman department store of blessed memory. Altman was mostly interested in porcelains produced during the reigns of three emperors of the Qing dynasty, between 1662 and 1795 (no more C.E. for a while; it's taken for granted), which were apparently quite fashionable when Altman was amassing his collection. He did a spectacularly good job. I assume he had agents who procured objects for his inspection; I wonder whether he had artistic advisers as well.
There are many pieces I really like: a relatively simple blue and white vase depicting two scholars in a landscape; a bottle painted with several lions that, if not exactly friendly-looking, appear more comical than fierce; and a small circular box that contained the paste for sealing documents, with a lovely "peach-bloom" (really a kind of burnt sienna) glaze. But what causes me, quite literally, to exclaim, "Oh, oh, oh!" under my breath is today's object, a vase, about 15 inches high, painted with colored enamels over a transparent glaze and produced in the mid-18th century. I respond to the combination of its slender, graceful shape, with its mouth much wider than its base; its striking red (Chinese red!) color, inadequately captured in my photo, which makes it look more hot pink; and the fineness of the flowers painted on it, mostly in white panels of various shapes (rectangles, banner-like forms, a form with rounded edges). Delicate bands of flowers also appear under the mouth of the vase and at its base. The flowers are painted in pink and yellow and blue against green foliage, and I think I can recognize peach blossoms, chrysanthemums (or dahlias, perhaps? Shows what I don't know about flowers!), and maybe peonies. The red gives the vase a sense of vibrancy if not tranquility. It's certainly a "statement piece" that would attest to the taste- and wealth - of its owner.
I'm vaguely dissatisfied because "my" vase is displayed right next to a very similar but not identical vase. Were they meant to be used and shown as a pair, I wonder? It's hard to tell, becase Vase 2 is displayed on a higher pedestal than "my" vase, making it hard to determine if they are identical in size if not in decoration. Oh well, that's a quibble about what is unquesetionably a spectacular array of beautiful objects.
The gallery houses porcelains collected by Benjamin Altman, the merchant magnate who established the B. Altman department store of blessed memory. Altman was mostly interested in porcelains produced during the reigns of three emperors of the Qing dynasty, between 1662 and 1795 (no more C.E. for a while; it's taken for granted), which were apparently quite fashionable when Altman was amassing his collection. He did a spectacularly good job. I assume he had agents who procured objects for his inspection; I wonder whether he had artistic advisers as well.
There are many pieces I really like: a relatively simple blue and white vase depicting two scholars in a landscape; a bottle painted with several lions that, if not exactly friendly-looking, appear more comical than fierce; and a small circular box that contained the paste for sealing documents, with a lovely "peach-bloom" (really a kind of burnt sienna) glaze. But what causes me, quite literally, to exclaim, "Oh, oh, oh!" under my breath is today's object, a vase, about 15 inches high, painted with colored enamels over a transparent glaze and produced in the mid-18th century. I respond to the combination of its slender, graceful shape, with its mouth much wider than its base; its striking red (Chinese red!) color, inadequately captured in my photo, which makes it look more hot pink; and the fineness of the flowers painted on it, mostly in white panels of various shapes (rectangles, banner-like forms, a form with rounded edges). Delicate bands of flowers also appear under the mouth of the vase and at its base. The flowers are painted in pink and yellow and blue against green foliage, and I think I can recognize peach blossoms, chrysanthemums (or dahlias, perhaps? Shows what I don't know about flowers!), and maybe peonies. The red gives the vase a sense of vibrancy if not tranquility. It's certainly a "statement piece" that would attest to the taste- and wealth - of its owner.
I'm vaguely dissatisfied because "my" vase is displayed right next to a very similar but not identical vase. Were they meant to be used and shown as a pair, I wonder? It's hard to tell, becase Vase 2 is displayed on a higher pedestal than "my" vase, making it hard to determine if they are identical in size if not in decoration. Oh well, that's a quibble about what is unquesetionably a spectacular array of beautiful objects.
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