Lady Holding a Vase (1100s–1200s): Art, History and Details

Lady Holding a Vase (1100s–1200s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The Cizhou ware kilns never produced for the imperial court, but made potted utensils needed in daily life. They also fired ceramic figurines, which are believed to have been used as toys. The maid or palace lady here holds a long-necked vase of a type that watered flowers. The figurine, perhaps made as a toy for a girl, was molded in clay and covered with a white slip and transparent glaze, over which some colors in red, green, and ocher were applied. Cizhou kiln potters were one of the first in China who applied overglaze enamel-like colors on glazed, high-fired ceramics.

Object facts

• Title: Lady Holding a Vase
• Date: 1100s–1200s
• Culture: China, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127) - Jin dynasty (1115-1234)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Stoneware with slip decoration, Cizhou ware
• Dimensions: Overall: 19.7 x 9.5 cm (7 3/4 x 3 3/4 in.)
• Collection: China - Song Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1957.56

A detail from the museum

This hollow stoneware figure of a woman has firing hole visible at the bottom.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “Janus in Limbo.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 50, no. 1 (January 1963): 3–6.
• von Spee, Clarissa. "Art In New Dimensions: Chinese Miniature and Small Objects at the Cleveland Museum of Art." Arts of Asia 52, no. 4 (Winter 2022): 117–121.

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.