Day 85 - Snuff bottle
September 4, 2018
Gallery 219 is devoted to Chinese decorative arts and contains dozens of small, exquisite objects of porcelain, enamel, jade, glass, ivory, cinnabar, bamboo, amethyst, and perhaps some other substances as well, that date from the Ming and Qing dynasties. There are helpful touchscreens that provide information about many of the objects without cluttering up the display cases. This strikes me as a really good use of technology.
As I walk in, my eye is immediately drawn to a small gourd-shaped bottle, about 3 inches high (the photograph is actually true to scale), which I take to be a perfume bottle but turns out to be a snuff bottle. And while I have come to associate the delicate cobalt blue of the vegetal forms with painting on white porcelain, in fact, the bottle is made of enamel, with a lapis lazuli stopper. It dates from the Qianlong period (1736-95) of the Qing dynasty.
As I make my way into the gallery, I note an ivory statuette of a female bodhisattva holding a child, and I think maybe I should write about this instead. Made during the Ming dynasty, the statuette's graceful, elongated, curving form and the elaborate drapery of her garment remind me of many Gothic wooden statues of the Madonna. The caption says that while this bodhisattva was originally understood to be male or genderless, female manifestations appeared in China and were valued for their ability to provide blessings, perhaps above all, children. ("Perhaps above all" is my gloss, not the Met's.)
As I walk in, my eye is immediately drawn to a small gourd-shaped bottle, about 3 inches high (the photograph is actually true to scale), which I take to be a perfume bottle but turns out to be a snuff bottle. And while I have come to associate the delicate cobalt blue of the vegetal forms with painting on white porcelain, in fact, the bottle is made of enamel, with a lapis lazuli stopper. It dates from the Qianlong period (1736-95) of the Qing dynasty.
As I make my way into the gallery, I note an ivory statuette of a female bodhisattva holding a child, and I think maybe I should write about this instead. Made during the Ming dynasty, the statuette's graceful, elongated, curving form and the elaborate drapery of her garment remind me of many Gothic wooden statues of the Madonna. The caption says that while this bodhisattva was originally understood to be male or genderless, female manifestations appeared in China and were valued for their ability to provide blessings, perhaps above all, children. ("Perhaps above all" is my gloss, not the Met's.)
But then I use the touchscreen to learn more about my snuff jar, and I read that gourd shapes were popular because they symbolized progeny, with the presence of many gourds on a single vine representing the existence of many children in a family line. So in fact both the objects I selected speak to the same theme: the importance (and maybe the wonder) of having children. As I lay in bed this morning, I was thinking about how to discuss my not having children in the 50th Reunion book, so clearly, it is a theme running through my mind.
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