"Family Collection" continues to pay attention to the special program "The Return of Imperial Porcelain". Today I want to talk to you about a Qing Dynasty Guangxu pastel Bailuzun in the collection of the Palace Museum.
Bailu Zun is abbreviated from Bailu Tuzun, "deer" and "Lu" homonym, meaning high-ranking officials and Houlu, so it is also called "Bailu Zun". The deer on the porcelain statue have different shapes and behaviors, or run and play, or forage for food and rest, a vibrant scene.
In addition to the "Bailu" and "Bailu" just mentioned, this kind of porcelain can be regarded as a symbol of the special rank and status of the court. In addition, the porcelain itself is particularly delicately decorated, condensing the vast landscape to this pear-shaped vessel, and the depiction of the narrow shoulders and necks of Bailuzun and the distant peaks presents us with a magnified perspective landscape painting.
Wei Yue, a docent of the Jiangxi Provincial Museum, introduced that the shape of this Bailuzun is very large, leaving a certain space for creation, so it can open the far, middle and close scenes of the picture to painting. In addition, the potters of the Imperial Kiln Factory also inspected the shape and form of the deer in depth, so we can see that there are different varieties of deer such as sika deer and mountain deer on this deer.
Cao Jianwen, a professor at the School of Ceramic Arts of Jingdezhen Ceramic University, introduced that Bailuzun is a very representative type of vessel in the official kiln of the Qing Dynasty. As early as the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, similar porcelain has appeared, but it is different from the Qing Dynasty in shape.
In addition to representing the peace of the country and the people, the smart deer can also represent high-ranking officials and Houlu, but such a picture of a hundred deer is not something that ordinary people can draw casually, ordinary people can only draw a dozen deer at most.
During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the production of Bailuzun reached its peak, and the number of products produced was also the largest. The Bailuzun we see now is the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, although it is already a high-grade work of the late Qing Dynasty, but compared with the works of the three dynasties of the Qing Dynasty, it is still slightly inferior in terms of skill and color.