Prunus Vase (Meiping) with Blossoming Lotus (late 1400s): Art, History and Details

Prunus Vase (Meiping) with Blossoming Lotus (late 1400s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

According to 11th-century poet Zhou Dunyi, “all people like peonies, but I alone like the lotus because it emerges from the mud unstained.” The lotus is a symbol of purity and popular among Chinese literati and in Buddhism. This vase shows lotus flowers rising from the water’s surface depicted in elegant yet simple ripples. Made in a kiln at Jingdezhen in southern China, this vase is an example of the fahua technique—decoration with raised outlines produced by squeezing clay from a tube onto the vase’s surface. Colors are applied to fill the outlines before firing.

Object facts

• Title: Prunus Vase (Meiping) with Blossoming Lotus
• Date: late 1400s
• Culture: China, Jiangxi Province, Jingdezhen kilns, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Porcelain with polychrome glazes, Fahua ware
• Dimensions: Diameter: 19 cm (7 1/2 in.); Overall: 37.5 cm (14 3/4 in.)
• Collection: China - Ming Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1942.716

A detail from the museum

The shoulders of the vase are decorated with ruyi-shaped clouds.

Collection credit

Bequest of John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of the John L. Severance Collection: Bequest of John L. Severance, 1936. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1942.
• Hollis, Howard C. “Department of Oriental Art: Chinese Ceramics and Jades.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 29, no. 9, 1942, pp. 150–157.
• J. Mayuyama and H. Igaki, "Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the CMA," Tosetsu 陶說, August 1956, no. 41, pp. 41-46.

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.