Candle Stand (600s): Art, History and Details

Candle Stand (600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This magnificent candle or lamp stand consists of a shallow dish and a cylindrical holder, below which is a columnar support embellished with palmette designs and two entwined dragons atop a lotus blossom pedestal. The creamy white stoneware is covered with a finely crackled clear glaze that shows a slight yellow-green tinge where it is thick. The search for a white clay body represented a technical advancement of the kilns in northern China, anticipating the development of the true high-quality white porcelains during the late Tang period.

Object facts

• Title: Candle Stand
• Date: 600s
• Culture: China, Sui dynasty (581-618) to early Tang dynasty (618-907)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: white stoneware with modeled and applied decoration
• Dimensions: Overall: 29.8 cm (11 3/4 in.)
• Collection: China - Sui Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1930.322

Collection credit

Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.