White-Glazed Jar with Hidden Design (1500s–1600s): Art, History and Details

White-Glazed Jar with Hidden Design (1500s–1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

White was a ritual color used in Buddhist ceremonies, as well as the color of mourning. This jar is made of two molded halves that were joined where the vessel’s middle section shows a raised line. It is covered by a silky white glaze called “sweet-white” (tianbai; 甜白). A “hidden design” (anhua; 暗花) of floral scrolls on the shoulder and stylized petals around the base shine through the glaze. The jar may have been used as a planter, a vase for flowers, or it may have held incense sticks on a home altar.

Object facts

• Title: White-Glazed Jar with Hidden Design
• Date: 1500s–1600s
• Culture: China, Jiangxi province, Jingdezhen kilns, Ming dynasty (1368-1644)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Porcelain with sweet-white (tianbai; 甜白) glaze
• Dimensions: Overall: 13.9 x 16.4 cm (5 1/2 x 6 7/16 in.)
• Collection: China - Song Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 2020.185

A detail from the museum

Tianbai, or sweet-white glaze, was developed to accommodate the Yongle emperor’s (reigned 1403–24) preference for white ceramics.

Collection credit

Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift

Further reading listed by the museum

• Von Spee, Clarissa. "Chinese Ceramics and Works on Paper." In The Keithley Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art, edited by Heather Lemonedes Brown, 194–229. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2022.

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.