Earthenware with relief decoration under olive-green glaze H. 13
7/8 in. (35.2 cm) Purchase, Stanley Herzmann Gift, 1996
(1996.15) This splendid jar is a mingqi, an object made
especially for burial with the dead, and was used for ritual
offering of food in the tomb. The relatively inexpensive
earthenware would have been a substitute for more costly silver
or bronze, and the vessel copies metalware in both form and
ornamentation. This fascinating object is one of an extremely
small group of flambuoyant stoneware or earthenware jars
manufactured in northern China during the second half of the
sixth century. Many of the applied decorative elements on this
group of elaborate vessels are taken from Buddhist ornamental
grammer, and some of the motifs here evidence a Buddhist
connection. The decorative style shows a definite Western
derivation, particularly in the singular motif of pearl roundels
containing heads with frontal Central Asian faces. These
naturalistic fleshy faces have been sculpted in exquisite detai