Blue, White, and Wonderful: Seventeenth-Century Chinese Porcelain

A ceramic with a round body, a long, narrow neck, and a small base. The surface is adorned with blue decoration, including a coat of arms and vegetal forms.

Flask with the Royal Arms of Spain, China, Ming dynasty, 1610–20. Porcelain with cobalt blue under clear glaze. Yale University Art Gallery, Robert Hatfield Ellsworth Fund 

Highlighting a recently acquired Chinese porcelain flask, Denise Patry Leidy, the Ruth and Bruce Dayton Curator of Asian Art, discusses a fascinating moment in global ceramic history, when Chinese kilns began producing works specifically for the European market. European trade with China flourished in the early 17th century, after the famed Portuguese explorer Vasco di Gama opened sea trade between Europe and Asia by sailing around the African coast. In response to political and economic turmoil and the subsequent need for new markets, the kilns at the great complex in Jingdezhen began to diversify by producing ceramics for the court, for the domestic market, and for trade to Japan as well as to India and other parts of the greater Islamic world. Within the coat of arms on the front of the flask, the two rampant lions and two castles indicate that the object was made for the Spanish court. The reverse is painted with a scene of a Chinese scholar resting in a landscape, while the shape of the flask is derived from Islamic metalwork.  

Meet by the central column in the Gallery lobby. Space is limited.