A British Museum Spotlight Loan A Ming Emperor's seat

A British Museum Spotlight Loan
A Ming Emperor’s seat
10 August to 21 November 2021

Acknowledgements
The British Museum’s National Programme highlights key
objects in its collection. It is one of the many ways the Museum
collaborates with organisations across the UK. Through this
programme and other touring exhibitions and loans, more
people see British Museum objects outside London than visit
the museum itself – over 10 million people had the chance to
see more than 2,800 objects on loan during 2019/20.

The British Museum is proud to be working in partnership with
the Royal Albert Memorial Museum on A Ming Emperor’s Seat.

The Ming seat is part of a long-term loan from the Sir Percival
David Collection to the British Museum. It has almost 1,700
examples of the finest Chinese ceramics in the world, primarily
dating from the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, spanning
1,000 years.

This Spotlight Loan is supported by The Sir Percival David
Foundation of Chinese Art.

This exhibition has been made possible as a result of the
Government Indemnity Scheme. The Royal Albert Memorial
Museum & Art Gallery would like to thank HM Government for
providing Government Indemnity and the Department for
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England for
arranging the indemnity.

A Ming Emperor’s seat
Porcelain with underglaze cobalt-blue decoration
Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province 江西省, 景德鎮
Ming dynasty, Wanli period, AD 1573–1620
On loan from the Sir Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art,
PDF,B.660

This garden seat was made for the court of the Wanli Emperor
(r.1573–1620). His reign was one of the longest in the Ming
dynasty. It was crafted in the kiln site of Jingdezhen, the
porcelain capital of China for over a thousand years. The large
hollow seat would have been used by members of the
emperor’s enormous household. It would have been moved
from the palace interior to the surrounding gardens.

The seat features blue dragons surrounded by clouds, waves
and a flaming pearl. Dense patterns of leaves and flowers
ornament the sides which are pierced with intricate rings. The
use of a dragon is significant because in China the dragon motif
represented Imperial authority. It was also used as a shorthand
symbol for the emperor himself.

Sir Percival David (1892 - 1964)
A passionate collector or ceramics

Sir Percival David built the finest private collection of Chinese
ceramics in the world. He came from the wealthy Sassoon
banking family, based in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, and
settled in London in 1913. His passion for China inspired him to
learn Chinese well enough to translate 14th-century art texts.
His business took him across East Asia where he purchased
many of his best ceramics.

David was a committed philanthropist and gave money
towards establishing the first public display of Chinese ceramics
at the Palace Museum in Beijing. He was determined to use his
own collection to inform and inspire people and to keep it on
public view in its entirety. Today the Sir Percival David
Foundation Trustees continue his mission by lending the
collection to the British Museum and allowing this rare item to
travel around the UK for the first time.

Image caption: Sir Percival David
Credit: © SOAS Picture Archive, SOAS/SPA/4/8 © SOAS
University of London

A Love of Porcelain
Chinese porcelain was exported to Southeast Asia, the Middle
East and Africa in the Tang dynasty (AD 618-906). European
traders imported porcelain directly from China in the early
1500s. By the 1700s, trade was restricted to Guangzhou
(Canton). Trading stations built in European styles called Hongs
flanked the Pearl River in Canton. There, European traders lived
during the trading season and also stored porcelain for
shipment abroad.

Porcelain was a popular commodity as it could not be made in
Europe at the time and commanded high prices there. The
European demand for tea dominated the 18th-century trade
with China. Porcelain in underglaze blue and white was often
used as ship ballast.

RAMM’s collections include an assortment of export-ware
produced in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Visitors exploring the
Asia display in the adjacent gallery will find a small selection of
porcelain there.

Image caption: Finished porcelain is being loaded onto a boat
for the journey to places like the Hongs at Guangzhou (Canton).
Credit: © The Trustees of the British Museum

How it was made
The excellence of Chinese ceramics is the result of an efficient
organisation which existed in all manufacturing industries, but
especially in the ceramic industry. During the Ming dynasty,
kilns at Jingdezhen produced sufficient porcelain to supply the
whole country and much of the rest of the world as well. They
used methods of mass-production.

The different tasks, such as preparing the material, forming and
decorating the pieces, were subdivided among a number of
different craftsmen. Many workers were involved at each stage
in the processes of porcelain-making. A single item might pass
through the hands of as many as seventy men.

Creating a form in clay without resulting in major cracks or
sagging was extremely hard to achieve. Porcelain is a ceramic
ware constituted of two ingredients, kaolin and petuntse.
Petuntse is a feldspathic rock also called china stone, a mineral
formed from decomposed granite.

After firing at a very high temperature these combined
ingredients enabled potters to create a delicate, translucent,
non-porous strong body. This garden seat, for example, can
support the weight of an adult person without breaking.

Image caption: Porcelain vessels being loaded into the kilns
prior to firing.
Credit: © The Trustees of the British Museum