Taipei National Palace Museum "Suitable for the Heart - Ming Dynasty Yongle Emperor's Porcelain" special exhibition, selected nearly 100 pieces of Yongle porcelain masterpieces at one time and completely presented. This is also the first time since the opening of the National Palace museum in Taipei that a special exhibition has been held with the porcelain of the Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. The exhibition exhibits a porcelain and knight plate with a combination of five-clawed cloud dragon pattern and seawater river cliff pattern, which is of transcendent quality and should be an important home country heavy weapon in the Yongle period.
Ming Yongle Blue and White Waves Dragon Pattern Cup, Jue Tray Collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei
The cup is shaped like a bronze vessel, with an oval flow in front and a pointed tail at the back, with double columns standing on the rim of the mouth on the left and right, and a three-legged under the belly. The tray is folded along the edge, flat bottom, the bottom has four ruyi-shaped feet, and a three-mountain pillar protrudes from the center of the plate, and there are slightly concave and three pores between the three mountains for the abdomen and three feet of the porcelain lord to rest, so it is also called "Xie Jue Mountain Plate". On each side of the outer wall of the porcelain lord is painted a five-clawed cloud dragon, under which the sea water river cliff pattern is painted, the three legs are decorated with ruyi cloud patterns and double lines, the bottom of the vessel has a circle of astringent tires, the center is glazed and painted with a lotus flower, and the inside of the vessel is pure white without ornamentation. In addition to the three mountain-shaped bumps in the center of the disc, the four weeks are painted with double dragon patterns and seawater waves, the lips are painted with cloud curl grass patterns, the two layers of folded branches of the lotus flowers are painted on the lips, and the four legs have a ruyi cloud and a passionflower, and the center of the disc reveals a dense white carcass. The same combination of cups and trays has been excavated at the Zhushan site in Jingdezhen, where court utensils were fired.
The special feature of the Knight's Cup is that it comes with a break of the Knight's Mountain Plate. In 2011, a similar Ming Yongle Blue and White Seawater Dragon Pattern Xiejue Mountain Plate appeared in sotheby's Mei Yin Tang special session, which should be part of such assemblies and sold for HK$28.66 million. Compared with this one in the Collection of the National Palace museum in Taipei, which one is more exquisite?
In 2011, Sotheby's photographed the old Collection of Yongle Blue and White Disc of Meiyintang
The meaning of "knight"
Treasure hunting the world
In the Eastern Han Dynasty Xu Shen's "Commentaries on the Interpretation of Texts", there is "ritual instrument also." In the form of a lord, there is wine, and it is also held. So drink. The instrument is like a knight, take its singing knot and foot also. ".
The Bronze Lord is the most common and basic wine ceremonial vessel and sacrifice vessel in the Shang Dynasty and western Zhou Bronze Ceremonial Vessel. The Confucian classic "Ritual Instruments" of the pre-Han rituals of the Qin and Han dynasties records that "the sacrifice of the temple, the noble ones offer the lord, the untouchables offer the yao, the venerables raise the bow, and the lowly ones raise their horns." This shows the nobility of the status of knights in ancient sacrificial vessels. In the following more than a thousand years of history, the Bronze Lord played an extremely important role. In ancient China, the reverence of the "Jingzong Temple" and "Gongzu Old" Zongmiao was related to the Dingbang Anmin, and the sacrificial vessels displayed in the Zongmiao Temple originated from the use of utensils, but they were far more valuable than those, and the sages often regarded them as their lives.
After the end of the Bronze Age, the Southern Song Dynasty Gaozong crossed south, and the bronze ceremonial vessels stored in the Northern Song Dynasty were "all lost", and the national strength was weakened, and the sacrificial vessels were mostly made of porcelain. Bronze ceremonial vessels were gradually replaced by porcelain ritual vessels during the Southern Song Dynasty, becoming a system and extending to future generations. Wang Guangyao has written in "Looking at the Ancient Chinese Official-Like System from the Forbidden City's Collection of Porcelain-made Officials in the Qing Dynasty": "Since the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Dingyao, Ruyao, Yueyao, Xiuneisi, and the Erguan Kiln and Longquan Kiln under the Suburban Altar have all fired similar ritual utensils of similar types,...... The historical facts of the early Southern Song Dynasty, the middle and late Yuan Dynasty, and the Ming and Qing dynasties firing porcelain ritual vessels and the use of porcelain as a ritual vessel" is discussed.
The existing porcelain cup was first seen in the Yuan
Treasure hunting the world
As a sacrificial vessel and ceremonial vessel, the porcelain lord is placed in the ancestral mausoleum, the taimiao temple, and the high hall in various ceremonies, transcending the practical and decorative utensils, and also transcending the secular concepts of real life. Physically, the prosperity of the royal clans mingled with the splendor of the nation-state. The longing for eternal prayer on the altar established a prominent and sacred position among the artifacts of the same period, so the design and production of the royal sacrificial vessel was very careful, demanding, and the shape was standardized and exquisite.
Literature records that since the Beginning of the Song Dynasty, Yue Kiln, Jingdezhen Kiln, Longquan Kiln, Dehua Kiln and other kilns have produced porcelain jue, or named "Dagger Jue", many of which are specially fired for the court. However, among the extant physical objects, the earliest porcelain lords we can see are from the Yuan Dynasty.
In the Yuan Dynasty, "national customs are still white", many sacrifice vessels use white glaze, and the "Taixi" egg white glaze porcelain plate fired in Jingdezhen is the special vessel of the Taixi Sect's Temple that is in charge of the sacrifice, so there are also egg white glazes. Yuan Dynasty national circular hill set up an altar, the main building of the round hill for the royal blue tone, the Yuan Dynasty Jingdezhen potters use blue and white cobalt material to prepare glaze juice to create a blue glaze, applied to the utensils used as sacrifice vessels, so the name of the sacrifice blue glaze, including the sacrifice of blue glaze.
In 1982, the Yuan Dynasty cellar in Shexian County, Anhui Province unearthed the egg white glazed cup
In 1982, the Blue Glazed Jue Cup was excavated from the Yuan Dynasty cellar in Shexian County, Anhui Province
The blue glazed depiction of the Golden Jue Cup unearthed from the Shu Tomb in the Yuan Dynasty of Hangzhou
In the first year of Hongwu (1368), when Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang talked about the Taimiao sacrificial vessel, he said: "There are three wine lords, eight golden lords, and sixteen porcelain lords in the east and west of the temple", which can be seen that the porcelain lords were still important sacrifice vessels in the early Ming Dynasty, and it can be seen that the white glazed lords have been handed down from generation to generation. During the Yongle period, many white glazed lords and blue and white knights were fired, and the "knight plates" that were combined with the knights and plates were created.
Two Hongwu white glazed cups Nanjing Museum
Yongle white glazed cup
Ming Yongle Blue Flower Cloud Dragon Wave Mountain Peak Pattern Lord
Ming Yongle Qinghua Jue and Xie Shan Pan
It can be seen in contrast that the three-legged production of the Yuan and Early Ming Dynasties is relatively rough, but the three-legged above the first lord is a unified style. It should be made using the same mold turning method. The double pillar of the Yuan is different, when it is made by rubbing mud by hand. After arriving in Ming Hongwu and later, the double pillars are the same size, and the double pillar top lotus canopy is made in a regular and exquisite manner, which should be molded and then glued to the main body with three feet and two columns.
Regarding the double pillar of the knight, its function has not been conclusive, one is that when drinking with the knight, the double pillar touches the face as the limit, and the double pillar has the effect of restricting excessive drinking. The second is to maintain holiness during the sacrifice, cover the knight with silk cloth to prevent dust, and the double pillar of the knight is used to support the silk cloth to avoid being soaked by the wine in the knight. The third is that the double column has no practical function and plays a decorative role in the open boat-shaped mouth. In this way, the double pillar adds a lot of imagination space to the lord.
During the Jiajing period, the firing of knights was also very prosperous. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, it reached a new height of porcelain craftsmanship.
Jiajing blue glazed white dragon pattern jue cup British Museum
Ming Jiajing Blue Glazed Cup Collection of the Palace Museum
Qingqianlong White Glazed Lord Collection of the Palace Museum
Qingqianlong Purple Ground Rolling Road Pastel Depicting Gold Belt Tojue Cup Collection of the Palace Museum
The ambition after the cup
Treasure hunting the world
After browsing the successive mingjues, we found that the knights and plates designed by Yongle and Qianlong in the two periods coincided with each other, and the decoration was also unique.
Yongle Jue depicts a five-clawed dragon and a wave mountain. The five-clawed dragon symbolizes the Son of Heaven, and the wave peaks are familiar. The Forbidden City has a three-legged furnace of Yongle Qinghua Seawater River Cliff Pattern, which depicts the water flowing, impacting the mountain peaks, stirring up the waves and splashing, which is extremely surging and surging and the peaks stand majestically in the terrifying waves.
Ming Yongle blue and white seawater pattern incense burner Collection of the Palace Museum
Yongle blue and white wave dragon pattern knight tray
Looking at the seawater cliff in the abdomen of the Lord, it is the epitome of the decorative pattern of the three-legged furnace. When the three legs of the lord are inserted in the pankan, the shape and pattern show the trend of "standing still", and the two are completely unified, is not it the deep meaning of the designer who conceived and designed the "unity of the world, the eternal solidity of the country and mountains"?
The Qianlong Blue And White and Pastel Plates followed the concept of Yongle's shape and decoration, and made a clear and clear expression of the connotation of this style. Directly call such an instrument "for the Jiangshan unified plate".
Then, on the altar, the "unification of the country and mountains" contained in the Yongle and Qianlong knight plates became the most solemn oath of the emperors of these two dynasties in front of the ancestors. The unification of the world and the eternal stability of the country and the mountains are also the political desires and ambitions of the two kings.