On view
Asian Art
Huo Pavilion
Huo Pavilion
Jar with spiral decoration,
ca. 2600–2300 BCE
Chinese | Majiayao, Banshan phase
Neolithic period, ca. 8000–2000 BCE
y1979-94
In the Neolithic period, the many settled agricultural communities that flourished along river systems across China needed durable vessels in which they could store, cook, and serve food and drink. Neolithic craftspeople answered this need by producing a startling variety of technologically advanced pottery. The Dawenkou culture, named for the site where it was first discovered in Shandong province, is known for a remarkable type of thin-walled white ware. Ranging in color from white to yellow to pink, these ceramics contained high amounts of kaolin, the same clay mineral used to make porcelain, and they were fired to a temperature of about 900°C. Elaborately shaped pouring vessels of this type, which first appeared near the beginning of the third millennium BCE, were undoubtedly objects of high status, possibly designed for special ritual purposes not satisfied by more mundane daily ware.
More About This Object
Information
Title
Jar with spiral decoration
Dates
ca. 2600–2300 BCE
Medium
Red earthenware with painted decoration
Dimensions
h. 37.0 cm., diam. 53.0 cm. (14 9/16 x 20 7/8 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund
Object Number
y1979-94
Place Made
Asia, China, Gansu province
Culture
Period
Type
Materials
Subject
– Folke Stenbeck Collection.
–1976 Sotheby Parke-Bernet (London, United Kingdom), auction Jul. 6, 1976, lot 61.
–1979 Sotheby Parke-Bernet auction 4296, lot 90 or 128 (New York, NY), sold to R.H Ellsworth, Ltd. for the Princeton University Art Museum, 1979.
[Sotheby Parke Bernet?] Sold in London, July 6, 1976, no. 61; ex. Collection Folke Stenbeck. Following bibliography given:
Palmgren, “Kansu Mortuary Urns of Ban Shan and Ma Chang Groups,” Paleontologia Sinica, series D, vol. III, fasc. I, pl. XI, no. 5.
Anderson, “Researches into the Pre-History of the Chinese,” BMFEA, Stockholm, no. 15 (1943), pl. 82, fig. 2.
Museum purchase from Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York.
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1979," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 39, no. 1/2 (1980): p. 40-63., p. 42
- Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones, Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 29 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 288 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 340
