Jar | Yale University Art Gallery

early 8th century c.e.

The dark blue glaze covering this jar derives from cobalt, an oxide ore that was later used as a pigment for blue-and-white porcelain—the development of which in the mid-fourteenth century changed the course of global ceramic history. Mines in the Henan and Gansu Provinces may have been the source for the native cobalt that first decorated funerary and trade ceramics in the eighth and ninth centuries C.E.

Medium: Earthenware with cobalt-blue lead glaze
Dimensions: 5 1/2 × 6 1/4 in. (13.97 × 15.88 cm)
Credit Line: Wayland Wells Williams, B.A. 1910, Collection, Gift of Mrs. Frances Wayland Williams
Accession Number: 1947.77
Geography: China
Culture: Chinese
Period: Tang dynasty (618–907 C.E.)
Classification: Containers
Disclaimer: Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance

George Aristides Eumorfopoulos (1863–1939), London; sale, Sotheby's, London, May 28, 1940, lot 42; sold through Bluett and Sons, London, to Wayland Wells Williams (1888–1945), New Haven, Conn.; by descent to Frances Wayland Williams, by 1947; given to the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 1947

Bibliography

George J. Lee, Selected Far Eastern Art in the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1970), 22–23, no. 31, ill.

R. L. Hobson, The George Eumorfopoulos Collection: Catalogue of the Chinese, Corean, and Persian Pottery and Porcelain, 6 vols. (London: E. Benn, ltd., 1925–28), no. 336, pl. 51

R. L. Hobson, The Catalogue of the George Eumorfopoulos Collection of Chinese, Corean, and Persian Pottery and Porcelain, 6 vols. (London: Ernest Benn, Ltd., 1925), Cat. 1, no. 336, pl. 51

Object copyright

No Copyright - United States

Additional information

Object/Work type

jars

Inscriptions

n.s.

Technical metadata and APIs

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