Early days: Diverse exploration
From the fifth generation to the early Northern Song Dynasty, the decoration of plum bottles was mainly in the mode of "tire pattern glaze theory".
Five generations of Yuezhou kiln blue glaze scratched flower lotus petal pattern
Height 43 cm
Collection of Guangdong Provincial Museum
Beginning in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, it gradually unfolded in the "Fan Jin Zhenyu" style and the "Literary and Colorful Matching" style, and there were three kinds of ornamental layout formats of layered, blocked and single folded branches, respectively, the mouth and neck would never appear ornaments, the shin foot was sometimes absent, and the abdomen or shoulder abdomen became the center of gravity of the decoration.
In the late Northern Song Dynasty, Yaozhou kiln green glaze carved flowers entangled in large peony-patterned plum vases
Height 25 cm, collection of the National Museum of China, Beijing
In the late Northern Song Dynasty, the Yangyu kiln was white and black and the flowers were tangled with plum bottles
Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Art
In the late Northern Song Dynasty, the white ground black flowers were tangled with branches and plum bottles
Rinmai, Japan Ashiya Yamaguchi Keishiro
In the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty, white porcelain carved flowers folded branches peony pattern plum bottle
Height 36.7cm,
In the first year (1086) of the Northern Song Dynasty in Yongxin County, Jiangxi, Liu Jin's tomb was excavated
Liao Dynasty plum bottle decoration, focusing on highlighting the belly theme ornament, only see layered and single folded branches two formats.
Late Liao Dynasty Chifeng cylinder tile kiln white glaze carved flower filling black glaze tangled branches peony pattern plum bottle
Height 38.5 cm
Liaoning Chaoyang Damiao Township Deng Canzi Village Liao tomb excavated
Liao Chifeng cylinder tile kiln white glaze black color folded branch pattern small plate plum bottle
30.3 cm high, the tomb of 50 zi liao in the horse farm of Jianping County, Liaoning Province, was excavated
Ziren believes that there are two reasons behind this decorative feature: the way of living and indoor furniture in the Two Song Dynasties changed, that is, from the Tang people's seating on the floor to high furniture such as tables and chairs, which changed the location of the plum bottle. The shoulder and abdomen of the plum bottle are the main visual contact surfaces, so it has become the area where the theme of the decoration is located.
On the other hand, the practical function of the plum bottle in the Song and Liao dynasties requires that it must be equipped with a cap, seat and other accessories, and the mouth and neck of the plum bottle must be covered by the bottle cap, there is no need for decoration, and the lower abdomen and shin foot are often covered by the bottle holder and relaxed in decoration.
Northern Song Dynasty white glazed pearl ground stroke flower plum vase
Height 29.4 cm
The Song Tomb in Sanmenxia City, Henan Province was excavated
The decoration of the Jin Dynasty plum vase was popular in the multi-layered style, and the string pattern that served as a layered boundary during the Northern Song Dynasty evolved into a ribbon pattern. The most popular plant pattern is still tangled branches, and more transverse branches structures appear, and the emergence of this transverse branch structure should be related to the multi-layer format that causes the height of each layer of decorative belts to be compressed. The single folded branch format has matured more than in the Northern Song Dynasty and tends to be painterly. The most noteworthy phenomenon is that some plum bottles also have ornaments on the mouth and neck.
Jin Dynasty Shanxi kiln field tea end glaze cut flower tangled branches large leaf pattern plum bottle
Height 33.4 cm
Shanxi Fenyang Xinghua Village Fen distillery was excavated
Jindai Cizhou Guantai kiln white glaze black flower tangled branches large flower peony pattern plum bottle
Height 30.8 cm, Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA
Jin Yaozhou kiln celadon engraved peony pattern plum bottle
It is 30.5 cm high and excavated from Yao County, Shaanxi (present-day Yaozhou District, Tongchuan City).
Jinshan West Kiln Field White Glaze Black Painted Flower Folded Branch Peony Pattern Plum Vase
Height 38.3 cm, Shanghai Museum collection
Gold black glazed plum bottle
It is 41 cm high and was excavated from Zhuanglang County, Gansu
The ornamental layout of the Xixia plum bottle is unique. The mouth, neck and shoulders are not decorated, the abdomen is applied to a large area of the theme pattern, the shin part adopts a sloppy glaze process, forming a half-glaze phenomenon, often drawing a double string pattern as the boundary between the shin and the abdomen.
Western Xia black glaze scratch flower opening light fold branch peony pattern plum bottle
It is 37.3 cm high and excavated from the Western Xia Cellar in Mingai Township, Wang Banner (present-day Yijin Holo Banner) of Yimeng County, Inner Mongolia
The ornamental layout of the abdomen has three forms: the open light form, mostly with ripple patterns as the ground, and the open light is decorated with folded branches; the tangled branch form, only a single layer of scratching or scratching flowers; the layered form, with two or three strokes to divide the abdomen into two or three layers, the abdominal decorative belt or do open light or do tangled branches and other forms.
The motifs are all plant patterns, most commonly peony and peony, as well as patterns shaped like pomegranates, hibiscus and other flowers. Decorative bands are common ripples, curly grass patterns, leaf patterns and peach patterns. It is worth noting that it is often used to leave a circle of scratched glaze tire marks on the shoulder through the "buckle stacking" process, which plays the role of a decorative belt.
The decorative characteristics of the Southern Song Dynasty plum vase are: through the mode of Fan Jin's jade and pattern color, decorated with carved flowers and black painted flowers as the main means, it has a superior performance in famous kiln factories such as Yue kiln, Longquan kiln, Jingdezhen kiln, Jizhou kiln and so on. In the layout of ornaments, there are also traditional formats such as layering, fragmentation, and single folded branches. The layered format is also divided into three layers, some layered with open light, and the most typical performance of the single folded branches is in the Jizhou kiln black glaze paper-cut scratcher. In addition, the full decoration format inherited from the Northern Song Dynasty is divided into three types: tangle structure, unit four-square continuous structure, and dense ribbed structure.
Southern Song Dynasty Jingdezhen kiln blue and white porcelain print folding branches hundred pattern eight-edged plum bottle (a pair)
18 cm high, excavated from the Southern Song Dynasty tomb in Susong County, Anhui Province
Southern Song Dynasty Jizhou kiln white glaze black color painting hualien pattern plum bottle
29 cm high, excavated from Zhouli Village, Chaohu City, Anhui Province
Southern Song Dynasty Jizhou kiln underglaze brown color painting flower tangled branch pattern plum vase
32.7 cm high, excavated from the infrastructure construction site of the Provincial School of Finance and Economics in Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province
In the middle and late Southern Song Dynasty, Jizhou kiln black glaze cut flower folded branches plum pattern plum vase
21.2 cm high, the tomb of Jiading II (1209) of the Southern Song Dynasty in Nanchang County, Jiangxi Province was excavated
Longquan kiln celadon in the early and middle period of the Southern Song Dynasty carved flowers tangled with branches Peony lotus petal pattern plum bottle
35 cm high, excavated from gushi town in Songyang County, Zhejiang Province
Meta: Three-tier layout
In the layout of the ornamentation, the plum bottles in the Yuan Dynasty were layered, divided, and single folded branches, and layering was the most common. The most emblematic of the layout of the Plum Bottle decoration in the Yuan Dynasty is the Jingdezhen kiln, which is more mature and stable in the three-layer layout. The ornamental organization of Jingdezhen blue and white porcelain and blue and white porcelain is different.
Yuanlongquan kiln celadon printing dot brown color open light exposed tire eight immortals figure eight edge plum bottle
Height 23.6 cm, Japanese collection
Yuanjizhou kiln change glaze ring dot pattern plum bottle
20.1 cm high, excavated from the Yuan Dynasty cellars of the old city of Hechuan Town, Yongxin County, Jiangxi Province
The abdomen of blue and white porcelain is often used with seawater dragon patterns and cloud patterns, the former is delicate, the latter is sloppy. The shoulders of the dragon-patterned plum vase are all made of curl-type folded branches with a flex structure, and the shins are all similarly rectangular in the shape of a pot-shaped deformed lotus petal pattern. There is no ornamentation on the shoulder of the cloud-patterned plum bottle, and the shin is a triangular deformed lotus petal pattern.
In the late Yuan Dynasty, Jingdezhen kiln Ji blue glaze light carved white dragon pattern plum bottle
Height 43.5 cm, Collection of Yangzhou Museum
Yuan Dynasty Jingdezhen phoenix wearing flower three-clawed dragon pattern ink book shooting word plum bottle
Excavated from the Yuan Dynasty cellars of Gao'an, Jiangxi
The decoration of the blue and white plum vase is more flexible, more rich in the characteristics of the times and the variant format, the lid and the bottle body have made a unified and coherent design: the first, borrowing the woven cloud shoulder pattern, the shoulder is cleverly separated into relatively independent units, expanding the possibility of using the painterly monomer format; the second, the layered belt between the shoulder and the abdomen, the abdomen and the shin is broadened to leave white, compressing the height of the abdomen theme decoration, the blank belt appears simple and clean, and plays the concept and form law of victory and non-existence; the third, Introduce the form of episodic painting. In addition, yunlong, phoenix wearing flowers, tangled branches of peonies, etc. are also more inclined to painting. The ribbon pattern of the blue and white plum vase is very rich, which constitutes a "brocade strip pattern" with diverse forms and rich faces.
Late Yuan Jingdezhen kiln blue and white seawater dragon pattern with lid eight-edged plum bottle
The height of the pass is 51.5 cm, and it was excavated from the Yuan Dynasty cellar on Yonghua South Road in Baoding City, Hebei Province
Ming and Qing dynasties: the three-tiered style is surprisingly beautiful
The Ming Dynasty created the richest and most contemporary plum bottle decorative appearance. Because it is difficult to produce new in the format, the Ming Dynasty plum bottle is surprisingly pursued in decoration. Ming Dynasty plum bottle decoration mobilized almost all known and mastered glazes, colors, patterns to carry out a variety of decorative attempts on plum bottles, of which the most used is blue and white. In the ornamental layout, the three-layered hierarchical format becomes absolutely mainstream.
Ming Longquan kiln celadon skeletonized tangle flower pattern plum bottle
19 cm high, excavated from Huating County, Gansu
In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Jingdezhen kiln enamel blue glaze light color lotus pond pattern plum bottle
Height 36.8 cm, collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
Ming Jiajing Jingdezhen kiln blue glaze multicolor character pattern plum bottle
28 cm high, the tomb of Ming LiuJie of the Youxian Brigade of Jicun Commune, Dayu County, Jiangxi Province, was excavated
In the early and middle Ming Dynasty, Jingdezhen people's kiln qinghua carried wine to find Fang Tu plum bottle
In the fourth year (1525) of Ming Jiajing, the eastern suburb of Guilin City, Guangxi, the joint burial tomb of Zhu Jingfu and his wife, the king of Ansu in Jingjiang, was excavated, and the Guilin Museum collected it
Deformed lotus petals and cloud shoulder patterns are commonly used on the shoulders. The curly grass pattern of the Yongxuan period is quite elegant and innovative. After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the cloud shoulder pattern was added to the ying luo, miscellaneous treasures, etc., and the deformed lotus petal pattern was added to the cloud head-like petal tip, which enhanced the decoration. After Wanli, it borrowed the woven brocade open light pattern, and also popularized the seahorse pattern.
Tibia decoration and shoulder correspondence became the norm. The abdomen as a thematic decoration area is also the norm, and painterly ornamentation has become one of the most popular forms, either borrowing from the artistic conception of literati painting or using the allegorical technique of auspicious patterns. For example, scribes tour the mountains, sanyou tu, orchid grass, zhuangyuan and di, fish algae, green lotus, baby play and so on. Dragon and phoenix patterns are the most prominent category, which is related to the rise of official kilns and is the embodiment of imperial power.
In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Jingdezhen kiln red and green color tangled lotus pattern plum bottle
Height 28.3 cm, Shanghai Museum collection
Ming Wanli Jingdezhen folk kiln imitation brother glaze bucket color cedar cold meitu plum bottle
Height 30 cm, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Museum collection
During the Yongxuan period, giant dragon patterns were more common, and in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, they tended to be miniaturized, and the Jiawan period was often equipped with curly grass patterns, which were weak and weak. From Zhengde to Wanli, the phoenix pattern has characteristics. In the early Ming Dynasty, the use of dragon and phoenix patterns was prohibited, but in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, dragon and phoenix patterns became the theme patterns on the folk kilns, which was the product of "official and civil burning". Other popular animal patterns include peacock patterns in the early Ming Dynasty, crane patterns in the middle period, and butterfly patterns in the late period.
Ming Dynasty Xuande Jingdezhen royal kiln blue and white dragon pattern "plum bottle"
Height 55.3 cm, collection of the Nelson Yakins Museum in Kansas City, USA
Ming Dynasty Wanli with lid blue and white cloud dragon pattern plum bottle
The apse of the Xuan Palace of the Ming Tombs in Beijing was excavated
Ming Dynasty Wanli Jingdezhen folk kiln blue and white double dragon play bead pattern with lid plum bottle
Height approx. 37.5 cm, 18th year of the Ming Dynasty of Yaoshan, Guilin, Guangxi (1590)
The joint burial tomb of Zhu Lutao and his wife (Zhu Lutao's tomb chamber) of Wenyu King Wenyu in Jingjiang was excavated
The Qing Dynasty plum vase followed the three-tier style in decoration, the decoration of the mouth and neck reached the realm of pure fire, the lips were all left white, and the neck decoration and the shoulders, abdomen, and shin formed a unified whole.
Qing Dynasty Kangxi multicolored butterfly pattern plum vase, 36.2 cm high
Collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing
The Qianlong blue and white dragon phoenix is an auspicious plum vase with a height of 67 cm
The cultural relics of the Tangcheng ruins in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province are in the custody
The significant difference from the Ming Dynasty is the popularity of the Tongjing painting pattern, which originates from the single folded branch format, which is only beautified, the picture must be intentional, the meaning must be auspicious, the connotation is rich, the expression is delicate, and it is integrated with the art of painting.
In the early Qing Dynasty, the copper tire painting enamel landscape immortal Tu Mei bottle
Height 21.8 cm, collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing
Qing Kangxi Ji red glazed plum bottle
Height 24.2 cm, collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing
The influence of bottle caps and bottle holders
Ziren believes that in the study of plum bottle decoration, no researcher pays attention to the decisive influence of the "type system" of plum bottles on their own decoration, making the study of plum bottle decoration generalized and impossible to obtain truly valuable results. For example, most of the plum bottles in the Tang and Song dynasties did not have decorations on the mouth, neck and shoulder inner layers, why? The tibia decoration of the plum bottle mostly uses the lotus petal pattern that circumnavigates the bottle, in addition to the social consciousness influenced by religious concepts, is there also the role of the artifact body?
These two problems are related to the common accessories of plum bottles, bottle caps and bottle holders.
Due to the tightness of the wine, the plum bottles serving wine are equipped with bottle caps. In the early days, the cap of the plum bottle was cup-covered, and during use, mud seals were added, as well as seals or signatures of various official seals, ownership, and the name of the wine. This lid will cover the mouth and neck of the plum bottle, so early plum bottles generally do not decorate the mouth and neck.
Southern Song Dynasty official kiln celadon with lid plum bottle
Excavations at the Tiger Cave kiln site in Hangzhou, Zhejiang
Collection of the Southern Song Dynasty Official Kiln Museum in Hangzhou
Southern Song Dynasty Jingdezhen kiln blue and white porcelain with lid carved flower tangled branches peony lotus pattern plum bottle
The height of the pass is 40.9 cm, and it was excavated from the Southern Song Dynasty Cellar No. 1 in Suining Goldfish Village, Sichuan
What is confusing is that the plum bottle with a large plate has a thick neck and a large mouth rim, and if you use a cup-covered lid, the diameter of the lid will definitely exceed the width of the plum bottle shoulder, so that it is loose and collapsed, and it is not easy to fix and seal. Ziren speculated that at that time, this kind of large-handed plum bottle may have been equipped with a saucer-shaped lid, although there is no example of plum bottles, but this lid-shaped system existed in the Tang Dynasty.
Another special example is that the shoulders and mouth and neck of the Longquan kiln celadon plum bottle began to appear decorative patterns. Ziren deduced that the southern celadon plum bottle represented by the Longquan kiln is likely to have only a stopper or a lid of a small shallow dish, and only the mouth and neck are exposed, which has decorative value.
By the Yuan Dynasty, the plum bottle in Jingdezhen made a more closely unified and coherent design of the bottle cap and the bottle body, and the bottle cap added the bead button to the top of the previous cup-covered lid, becoming a new type of baozhu button bell cap, and the decoration of the bottle cap and the shoulder, abdomen and shin layers of the bottle body achieved a contrasting and echoing coordination effect.
In the early Yuan Dynasty, Jingdezhen kiln blue and white porcelain carved flower water dragon pattern with lid plum bottle
Tong height 33 cm, Jiangxi Wannian County Shizhen Commune Yuan Taiding first year (1324) Tang Shunfu tomb excavated
By the Ming Dynasty, most plum bottles still had bottle caps, and the form of the cap was only two kinds of jewelry button bell caps and cap caps, the former was common in the first, second, third, sixth and seventh style groups, the latter was common in the second and seventh style groups, and the Cup cover, which was still popular in the Yuan Dynasty, has disappeared so far.
In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, Jingdezhen folk kiln blue and white double dragon pattern with lid plum bottle
The height of the pass is 27.7 cm, and the Tomb of Ming in Liuzhou, Guangxi province was excavated
Early Ming Dynasty Longquan kiln celadon carved peach bamboo figure plum bottle
Pass height 44.9 cm
The plum bottle caps of the Ming Dynasty official kilns and the folk kilns are different. With the lid official kiln plum bottle mouth neck and the covered shoulder inside the shoulder will not appear ornamental, the requirements are more stringent, and on the folk kiln plum bottle, it is unrestrained, and some with a cover plum bottle mouth neck is also decorated. Therefore, whether the mouth and neck of the plum bottle in the Ming Dynasty are decorated cannot be used as a basis for judging whether the plum bottle is a furnisher.
By the Qing Dynasty, plum bottles as furniture were rarely equipped with lids, and the mouth and neck were generally decorated, which could be skillfully linked to the shoulders, abdomen, and shins as a unified whole. Even if the bottle cap is equipped, it is based on a certain aesthetic taste, and the shape and decoration of the bottle cap are considered purely from an aesthetic point of view.
Qingqianlong pinch silk with lid plum bottle
What needs to be further confirmed is whether a stopper was used when the cap of the plum bottle was sealed in the early days. Although no physical evidence can be found now, Ziren guessed that the mouth of the plum bottle should have a stopper. On the one hand, the lid of the early plum bottle did not have a tongue inside, and if the lid was only closed, the liquor was easy to overflow. On the other hand, at least by the Yuan Dynasty, plum bottle lids with tubular tongues had appeared, and, in order to ensure a tight seam, it was likely that soft materials would be wrapped on the tongue, which also proved from the side that early plum bottles should have stoppers.
The appearance of the lotus pattern is closely related to the use of the bottle holder. The practical plum bottles of the Song Dynasty were tall and thin, with small shins, and the bottle holder became a fixed accessory in the daily storage of practical plum bottles, and the bottle holders with single and double holes were popular. Most of the Liao Dynasty plum bottles were inserted in the bottle holder, or directly placed on the ground, or half buried in the soil. Liao Dynasty plum bottle holder does not have a single hole, are porous seats, larger volume, three holes are the most common, seat type in addition to the low table type, there are covered bucket type, square box type, short several types, etc., cover bucket type, square box type bottle seat side wall with perforation, mostly wood.
At the end of the Liao Dynasty, In the sixth year (1116) of Xuanhua Liaotianqing in Hebei Province, Zhang Shiqing's tomb was frescoed on the west side of the south wall of the back room of the M1 tomb
As a result, the lower abdomen and shin feet of plum bottles are often obscured by the bottle seat, and many plum bottles have lost decoration or only have a string pattern. The lotus flower, which is often used in Buddhism, is very suitable for decorating the shin foot of the plum vase, and when the plum vase is inserted in the bottle holder, only a part of the lotus pattern can be seen. In addition, the use of the Lotus Pattern at that time may also be related to Confucian culture, and Zhou Dunyi's "TheOry of Loving Lotus" re-examines the lotus from a Confucian perspective, believing that it has a noble character.
Later, the plum bottle changed to the direction of short fat, the center of gravity became lower, the shin became thicker, and gradually broke away from the bottle seat, and the lotus petals decorated with the feet began to stabilize and began to deform, which was very popular in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.
In the Yuan Dynasty, the northern plum bottle no longer had a bottle seat, and the south also had a bottle seat, and by the Ming Dynasty, the size of the plum bottle became relatively short, and the shape of the shin foot was further developed in the direction of taking into account both practicality and beautification, especially after the Ming Chenghua and Hongzhi in the 15th century, the bottle seat became less and less.
In the early Ming Dynasty, the Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln had a white glazed unadorned plum bottle with a lid and a seat,
The height of the pass is 45.5 cm, and the Xuande strata of the Ming "Royal Kiln" site in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, have been excavated
In the Qing Dynasty, plum bottles as flower arrangers and furnishings were still used as bottle holders. Therefore, it is not that after the bottle body is moderate and the shape of the instrument tends to be solid, the base will be cancelled. In a purely decorative environment, the bottle holder itself also has aesthetic significance.
In the late Qing Dynasty, Fujian was born out of gold lacquer painted with nine Rutu plum vases
Height 27.3 cm, Collection of Dongguan Museum, Guangdong Province
Ziren speculated that there may be another reason why the plum bottle is equipped with a base, the ancients hoped that the utensils had a top and a foot, so that there could be a beginning and an end, so the plum bottle had a lid and a base to be complete.
—END—