Dish with Laozi Riding a Water Buffalo (interior); Pavilion and Immortals in Rocky Landscape (exterior) (1723–35): Art, History and Details

Dish with Laozi Riding a Water Buffalo (interior); Pavilion and Immortals in Rocky Landscape (exterior) (1723–35) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Daoism traces its origins to Laozi, a sage believed to have lived in the sixth century BC, who was the reputed author of the Daode jing (Classic of the Way), a fundamental text for Daoism. The interior of this dish depicts the elderly Laozi riding a buffalo. He is accompanied by three servants and is greeted by a scholarlike figure. This dish borrows brush and shading techniques typically employed by artists who paint on paper or silk, a development frequently seen in porcelain decoration around the 1700s.

Object facts

• Title: Dish with Laozi Riding a Water Buffalo (interior); Pavilion and Immortals in Rocky Landscape (exterior)
• Date: 1723–35
• Culture: China, Jiangxi province, Jingdezhen kilns, Qing dynasty (1644-1911), Yongzheng reign (1723-35)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: porcelain with underglaze blue decoration
• Dimensions: Diameter: 19.9 cm (7 13/16 in.); Overall: 7.2 cm (2 13/16 in.)
• Collection: China - Qing Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1989.315

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. Severance A. Millikin

Further reading listed by the museum

• Sotheby's London. Important Oriental Ceramics; Works of Art. 28 May 1968.
• Catalogue of the Severance and Greta Millikin Collection. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1990.

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.