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Hindus use brass or mixed metalwork votive oil lamps (diya) for daily prayer rituals (puja). As light is the absence of darkness where evil forces dwell, lighting a lamp on a home altar signifies purity and goodness to convey good luck and power over evil. They are also used to honor arrival of a guest,…
Sawankhalok in north-central Thailand is an area with a large ceramic kiln output during the Sukhothai Kingdom (1238-1583). When Ming emperors forbade export of Chinese ceramics from 1368-1487, a period known as the Ming Gap, Thailand became a major ceramics producer and exporter to Southeast Asia, Japan and the Middle East. During the 14th and…
Ancestor-figures like this portrayed as a Mandarin official were placed on a home altar along with other house gods and religious images to bring blessings of fu to the household. Mandarin officials were lesser status public officials who acquired this rank by passing rigid exams. In the Qing dynasty this designation was considered so significant…
In China a set of earthenware Zodiac attendant figures was made as a 12 piece grouping, with each figure holding a small calendar animal with each year represented by a different animal – rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig or boar – in a repeating 12-year cycle. Although…
As one of the most popular Mahayana Pure Land images, especially during the Ming and Qing dynasties, this antique Chinese wood carving of Nanhai Guanyin of the Southern Seas is seated on a symbolic craggy rock outcrop below an arch of draped moss (some of which is missing ) at the entrance to the Tidal…
The origins of Nuo Opera, performed in provincial villages in Southern China since antiquity, is found in spirit and ancestor worship and Taoism. Performances use a few dozen to 200 masks having distinctive facial features, decorations, regional and ethnic individuality and aesthetic diversity. Usually carved from poplar or willow which are light and less likely…
Buddhist and Taoist deities were often placed on a home altar accompanied by a pair of attendants, one on each side, looking downward with modesty or inward with respect. Taoist attendants often carried unique offerings such as medicinal gourds/potions or pillboxes for medicine gods or baskets or sacks of gold and silver blocks for wealth…
This gorgeous porcelain ewer is covered in a saffron glaze, also called red coral glazed porcelain, created by potters in the Qing dynasty as a variety of new glazes at that time including a new coral red variety known as shan hu hong. This low-fired iron red glaze had a yellow tinge resembling the color…
Blue and White porcelain was first made in China during the Yuan dynasty and its production increased during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Before that, ceramics fired at lower temperatures were every day functional-and-utilitarian pieces using inexpensive clays and colors made in quantities for the poor. Because porcelain was superior to other ceramics, a huge…
The Keith Stevens’ article “An Unusual and Extraordinary Ancestral Image” describes a similar figure of a huntsman with a weapon, a flintlock gun, which he stated was the only ancestral image in his vast collection which “depicts the calling of the deceased.” (Stevens, Journal of Hong Kong) His piece was from Hunan, South Central China,…
Although the Chinese had been making a red glaze since the Song Dynasty, Qing dynasty potters developed several new and interesting glazes including a low-fired red coral glaze (shan hu hong) with a slight yellow tinge resembling red coral. It first appeared during the Kangxi Reign (1654-1722) and was used for dishes, bowls and vases as…
This Tibetan Repoussé image presents various symbols of the Enlightenment of the Shakyamuni-Buddha. He sits within a trefoil arch on a lotus base (padmapitha) under the bodhi tree in bhumisparsha mudra (earth witnessing or hand touching position) symbolizing the moment of his enlightenment legs bent in (padmasana). The detailed trefoil arch surrounding the Buddha’s head…
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