Gourd-Shaped Bottle with Lotuses

China

Not on view

Based on the shape of a calabash gourd, this type of bottle first appears in Chinese ceramics in the fourteenth century and becomes popular again in the sixteenth. Thought to hold the liquor of immortality, and carried by Daoist immortals, such gourds and the bottles in their shape are often associated with that religious tradition.

Gourd-Shaped Bottle with Lotuses, Porcelain painted with cobalt blue under and colored enamels over transparent glaze (Jingdezhen ware), China

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Gourd-Shaped Bottle with Lotuses, Porcelain painted with cobalt blue under and colored enamels over transparent glaze (Jingdezhen ware), China
Gourd-Shaped Bottle with Lotuses, Porcelain painted with cobalt blue under and colored enamels over transparent glaze (Jingdezhen ware), China
Gourd-Shaped Bottle with Lotuses, Porcelain painted with cobalt blue under and colored enamels over transparent glaze (Jingdezhen ware), China

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