Untitled

Unknown

early 16th century · Stoneware painted with cobalt blue under a transparent glaze · Asian Art

This dish, decorated in cobalt on a white slip and immersed in a translucent glaze, is typical of the Hoi An shipwreck cargo, salvaged near Cu Lao Cham island, offshore from Da Nang, central Vietnam. It is characterized by freely drawn brushwork that displays all the hallmarks of mass production, a skilled hand executing the underglaze blue designs with a practiced confidence. Technically the Vietnamese kilns never produced true porcelain but rather a high fired stoneware. The discovery of the Hoi An shipwreck in the late 1990s demonstrated the massive scale of Vietnamese glazed ceramic production at its peak in the early 16th century.

Artist

Unknown

Date

early 16th century

Medium

Stoneware painted with cobalt blue under a transparent glaze

Culture

Vietnam, probably Hai D’uong Province

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Gift of Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie, 2019