The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Bowl with Lotus Decoration

Art Object

Peony Pavilion

Presented November 30, 2012

Tan Dun, director

With the aim of animating Metropolitan Museum galleries in new ways, Met Museum Presents offers one of five performances of the sixteenth-century Kunqu opera masterpiece The Peony Pavilion, in a seventy-minute version developed and directed by celebrated composer Tan Dun with choreography by Huang Doudou, one of China's most prominent dancers, in the Met's Astor Court, the courtyard modeled on a seventeenth-century garden.

The performance is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Chinese Gardens: Palace Pavilions, Scholars' Studios, Rustic Retreats, on view August 18, 2012–January 6, 2013, which explores the rich interactions between pictorial and garden arts in China across more than one thousand years, featuring more than seventy paintings and contemporary photographs as well as ceramics, carved bamboo, lacquerware, metalwork, and textiles drawn from the Museum's collections.

The Peony Pavilion is one of the most important works of classical Chinese opera. A sweeping love story with subplots involving feudalism, the work in its original form consisted of fifty-five acts that take more than twenty hours to perform. This version is directed by Zhang Jun, one of China's most respected Kunqu performers, and remains faithful to the core plot focusing on the love story between the heroine and hero—Du Liniang and Liu Mengmei—and the Peony Pavilion where their love began.

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Bowl with Lotus Decoration

Period:: Northern Song dynasty (960–1127)
Date:: 11th–12th century
Culture:: China
Medium:: Porcelain with carved and incised decoration under ivory white glaze (Ding ware)
Dimensions:: H. 4 1/2 in. (11.5 cm); Diam. 9 3/4 in. (24.8 cm)
Classification:: Ceramics
Credit Line:: Gift of Mrs. Samuel T. Peters, 1926
Accession Number:: 26.292.98

This artwork is currently on display in Gallery 205

Description

The lively lotuses, leaves, and stems that fill the interior of this basin were carved and incised by hand prior to the glazing and firing of the basin. Because of their thinness, these wares are often fired upside down to spread weight and prevent distortion. The metal rim covers the part of the bowl that was left unglazed for firing.
See also
What
Ceramics (29,320)

Clay (23,649)

Porcelain (11,369)

Bone (6,328)

Ivory (5,389)

Glaze (5,188)

Bowls (5,014)

Ritual vessels (127)

Ding (60)
Where
Asia (68,071)

China (17,417)
When
A.D. 1000-1400 (7,084)
In the Museum
Asian Art (35,222)
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127)

Central and North Asia, 1000–1400 A.D.

China, 1000–1400 A.D.