Recently, the Palace Museum's New Year exhibition "Why China" was launched in the Wenhua Hall of the Forbidden City, and I took advantage of the heat to enter the palace to see.
On the day of the exhibition, he also met Wang Xudong, the president of the Forbidden City, in an interview with CCTV host Lu Jian.
In the past, entering the Palace Museum was mostly to see architecture and special exhibitions, but the permanent exhibition did not look at much, this time after watching "Why China", I looked at it for a little time to go to the Ceramics Museum.
The Palace Museum of Ceramics was originally located in the Wenhua Hall, and from May 1, 2021, it will be re-opened in the Wuying Hall, which is on the west side of the Taihe Gate, and the Wenhua Hall is symmetrical from the east to the west, which is also the place where the legendary Kangxi Capture Ao worships.
The Palace Museum has a collection of more than 370,000 ceramic cultural relics, and most of them are inherited from the Qing Dynasty court, which can be described as self-contained and orderly. The Ceramics Museum displays more than 1,000 of its collections, from the Neolithic Magnetic Hill culture to the Republic of China period, divided into 17 thematic displays.
In people's impressions, most of the cultural relics in the Collection of the Forbidden City are the collections of the Ming and Qing imperial courts, but there are also several cultural relics of the Three Kingdoms period, such as the Cao Zhen Monument and the Wei Wumeng Colonel Seal, but unfortunately there is basically no permanent exhibition. However, there is a national treasure of porcelain from eastern Wu of the Three Kingdoms, which is displayed in a conspicuous position at the entrance of the Forbidden City Ceramics Museum, which is a blue-glazed plastic barn jar.
Blue glazed plastic barn jar, Three Kingdoms Wu, height 46.4 cm, caliber 11.3 cm, bottom diameter 13.5 cm, excavated in the late 1930s Zhejiang Shaoxing Three Kingdoms Tomb. During the Three Kingdoms period, Shaoxing was the seat of Shanyin County, and was one of the richer regions of Eastern Wu.
Barn jars were popular in the Three Kingdoms Wu and Western Jin Dynasties, with pottery and porcelain products, which evolved from the Five-Part Jar of the Eastern Han Dynasty and were burial supplies at that time. Its sculptures are complex, with pavilions, birds, animals, music and dance acrobatics as its main performance contents, focusing on the castle-like pavilion buildings and luxurious life scenes where the rich and noble lived before their deaths.
The upper part of this blue-glazed barn jar is heaped with ornaments: a dog on each side of the first floor, and birds perched on the eaves and rats foraging. On each side of the tower stands a pavilion, under which eight attendants play different instruments. Five connected jars are stacked on top of the barn, the large jar is centered, and a rat is crawling out of the mouth of the jar. The four small tanks are arranged in the four corners of the large tanks, surrounded by birds that feed on their necks.
The shoulder of the barn jar is plastic pasted with a turtle stele, and the stele is engraved with 24 characters of "Yong'an three years of wealth and Yang (Xiang) Yi Gongqing's many descendants have a long life expectancy of Qianyi (billion) Long live without seeing Ying (disaster)". The third year of Yong'an, that is, 260 AD, was the reign of Emperor Wu jingdi Sun Xiu, and we also know the exact year in which this barn jar was made.
In 1976, Shangyu, Zhejiang Province, discovered the site of the late Eastern Han Dynasty celadon kiln, and after testing the excavated porcelain pieces, it was found that the firing temperature had reached 1300 degrees, which proved that at the latest in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, China had mastered the porcelain firing technology that met modern standards.
Zhejiang is the birthplace of porcelain and the center of porcelain production during the Three Kingdoms and Two Jin Dynasties. Excavations have uncovered a large number of exquisite celadons produced by the Eastern Wuyue kilns of the Three Kingdoms.
In 1996, celadon sheep were excavated from the Zhuran Family Tomb in Ma'anshan City, and the Zhuran Family Cemetery Museum of the Three Kingdoms of Ma'anshan City was collected
In 1955, the "Fourteen Years of Chiwu" celadon tiger was unearthed in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, which was collected by the National Museum of China
Eastern Wu porcelain inherited the porcelain, pottery and bronze of the Han Dynasty in terms of shape and decoration, and has developed and innovated greatly. Judging from the excavated cultural relics, Dongwu porcelain products have penetrated into all aspects of life, gradually replacing lacquer, wood, bamboo, pottery and metal products, and are the first peak in the history of The development of Chinese porcelain.
The Palace Museum ceramics museum this blue glazed plastic barn jar is of a very high level, is prohibited from going abroad (border) exhibition cultural relics, can definitely be called a national treasure. In the crowded ceramics hall, it is one of the few exhibits where you can enjoy the special counter display.
By the way, the Palace Museum of Ceramics has a total of seven "cultural relics prohibited from going abroad (border) for exhibition", and the remaining six are also the most prominent representative works of porcelain in various periods, which deserve special attention when viewing the exhibition.
Northern Dynasty blue glazed phoenix-headed dragon handle pot
Tanglushan kiln flower porcelain waist drum
Northern Song Dynasty Ru kiln azure glaze string pattern bottle
Northern Song Dynasty official kiln blue glazed string pattern bottle
Northern Song Dynasty Jun kiln moon white glaze out of the statue
Song Deng seal kiln pearl ground scratch tiger leopard pattern bottle
Resources:
https://www.dpm.org.cn/Home.html of the Palace Museum
Dong Jianli: "A Preliminary Treatise on Eastern Wu Porcelain", Oriental Museum, 2013(1)
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Writer, screenwriter, book reviewer. Graduated from Communication University of China. He is currently a member of the Beijing Writers Association, the Beijing Cultural Relics Protection Association, the Beijing Film and Television Art Society, and the partner of Zhen Cheng and the City Bookstore.
He has published works such as "The Dispute of the Nations: The Political Game of the Rich Families of the Three Kingdoms", "Such a Good History: The Struggle for Hegemony in the Three Kingdoms", "The Race of the Deer: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and the production of the audio course "The History of Young China".
Soon to be published "The Troubled World: The Past of the Three Kingdoms in the Letters" and "Return to the Scene of the Three Kingdoms".