Storage Jar

An ivory-glazed storage jar with forest bird and foliage design incised into the clay and highlighted in an iron wash underglaze. It has a carved projecting lotus petal collar below the rim and four residual lug handles on the shoulder. Jars of this type were designed to have a cover, but these rarely survive. One such cover is preserved in the Musees Royaux, Brussels, and is inscribed in iron-wash on the interior surface "wine container". This remains the most definitive indicator of the function of these otherwise enigmatic jars. The chosen designs are typically wild birds and beasts of the forest, sometimes being pursued by hunters (National Museum Hanoi), an allusion perhaps to the country-style wine that was served from such vessels. The imagery may also be interpreted as a conscious attempt on the part of the Vietnamese ceramic decorators to assert a non-Chinese identity in these wares.

They are a product of their place and time. Having said that, the technique of incised designs reserved in a brown iron-wash is learnt from Chinese Cizhou wares of the Song period. This is a particularly robust interpretation of this subject matter, typical of the newly independent Vietnamese state under the Ly (1009–1225) and its successor, the Tran Dynasty (1225–1400).