The British Museum holds the worlds broadest collection of Ming ceramics. Nearly a thousand items are here illustrated, identified, dated and discussed, incorporating the most up-to-date archaeological discoveries and scientific research previously available only in Chinese or specialist journals. Five introductory essays provide an accessible framework. Each of the catalogues twenty chapters is then introduced with a brief summary of its defining characteristics. A wealth of additional information is clearly interpreted and presented in a series of appendices, tables and maps for ease of reference and research by collectors, students and scholars.

Presents 50 selected highlights of this world-renowned collection ... The accompanying text gives brief details and draws out their most significant features"--Cover flap.

his illustrated publication is the outcome of the conference 'Ming: Courts and Contacts 1400-1450' held October 9-October 11, 2014 and that accompanied the British Museum's major exhibition Ming: 50 years that changed China (September 2014-January 2015). The scope of the exhibition and conference focused on Ming dynasty China in the years 1400 to 1450.

Song Blue and White Porcelain on the Silk Road disproves received opinion that pre-Ming blue and white dates to the Yuan (1279-1368 A.D.) and establishes the proper foundation for 21st century study of ancient Chinese porcelain.

Persian Pottery in the First Global Age: the Sixteenth and Seventeeth Centuries studies the ceramic industry of Iran in the Safavid period (1501–1732) and the impact which the influx of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain, heightened by the activities of the English and Dutch East Indies Companies after c. 1700, had on local production. The multidisciplinary approach of the authors (Lisa Golombek, Robert B. Mason, Patricia Proctor, Eileen Reilly) leads to a reconstruction of the narrative about Safavid pottery and revises commonly accepted notions. The book includes easily accessible reference charts to assist in dating and provenancing Safavid pottery on the basis of diagnostic motifs, potters’ marks, petrofabrics, shapes, and Chinese models.

Western scholars of ancient Chinese ceramics have long thought blue and white porcelain manufactured before the Ming (1368-1644 A.D.), dates to the Yuan (1279-1368 A.D.). Even in China today these porcelains are still termed “Yuan Blue and White.” Based upon first-hand surveys of sites in Inner Mongolia, Adam T. Kessler’s Song Blue and White Porcelain on the Silk Road demonstrates that blue and white was made during the Song (960-1279 A.D.) ended up in the hands of the Xi Xia (1038-1226 A.D.) and the Jin (1115-1234 A.D.). Blue and white found today in hoards was buried prior to Mongol invasions of China in the 1200s. Sites from the Philippines to Egypt have yielded Song blue and white. Also reviewed is the cobalt-bearing ore used by Song China to create blue and white.

This book explores the relationship between collecting Chinese ceramics, interior design and display in Britain through the eyes of collectors, designers and tastemakers during the years leading to, during and following the Second World War. The Ionides Collection of European style Chinese export porcelain forms the nucleus of this study – defined by its design hybridity – offering insights into the agency of Chinese porcelain in diverse contexts, from seventeenth-century Batavia to twentieth-century Britain, raising questions about notions of Chineseness, Britishness, and identity politics across time and space. Through the biographies of the collectors, this book highlights the role of collecting Chinese art objects, particularly porcelain, in the construction of individual and group identities. Social networks linking the Ionides to agents and dealers, auctioneers, and museum specialists bring into focus the dynamics of collecting during this period, the taste of the Ionides and their self-fashioning as collectors. The book will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of art history, history of collections, interior design, Chinese studies, and material culture studies.

Maris Boyd Gillette's groundbreaking study tells the story of Jingdezhen, China's porcelain capital, from its origins in 1004 in Song dynasty China to the present day. Gillette explores how Jingdezhen has been affected by state involvement in porcelain production, particularly during the long 20th century. She considers how the Chinese government has consumed, invested in, taxed and managed the local ceramics industry, and the effects of this state intervention on ceramists' lives, their local environment and the nature of the goods they produce. Gillette traces how Jingdezhen experienced the transition from imperial rule to state ownership under communism, the changing fortunes of the ceramics industry in the early 21st century, the decay and decline that accompanied privatisation, and a revival brought about by an entrepreneurial culture focusing on the manufacture of highly-prized 'art porcelain'.

Students and scholars of the Italian Renaissance easily fall under the spell of its achievements: its self-confident humanism, its groundbreaking scientific innovations, its ravishing artistic production. Yet many of the developments in Italian ceramics and glass were made possible by Italy's proximity to the Islamic world. The Arts of Fire underscores how central the Islamic influence was on this luxury art of the Italian Renaissance. Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Getty Museum on view from May 4 to August 5, 2004, The Arts of Fire demonstrates how many of the techniques of glass and ceramic production and ornamentation were first developed in the Islamic East between the eighth and twelfth centuries. These techniques - enamel and gilding on glass and tin-glaze and lustre on ceramics - produced brilliant and colourful decoration that was a source of awe and admiration, transforming these crafts, for the first time, into works of art and true luxury commodities. Essays by Catherine Hess, George Saliba, and Linda Komaroff demonstrate early modern Europe's debts to the Islamic world and help us better understand the interrelationships of cultures over time.

The Museum’s outstanding collection of maiolica is significant because most of the major pottery centers, maiolica forms, and styles are represented. This current catalogue presents the collection in a chronological progression according to stylistic trends. Lavish color plates accompany the detailed entries