Vase with Poet Zhou Dunyi
The larger seated figure resting near the banks of a lotus pond is the scholar-official Zhou Dunyi (1017–1073), who wrote an elegant poem about his love for this flower. Representations of poets appear in Chinese ceramics in the fourteenth century and are often identified by references to their writings. A long inscription written on the bottom of this jar dates it to 1587, and indicates that it was commissioned for the use of an auxiliary palace in the southwest.
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