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Details
- Place where the work was made
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China
- Period
- Han dynasty 206 BCE - 220 CE → China
- Date
- 206 BCE-220 CE
- Media category
- Ceramic
- Materials used
- earthenware with green lead glaze
- Dimensions
- 12.5 x 19.4 x 21.9 cm
- Credit
- Gift of Mr Sydney Cooper 1962
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- EC23.1962
- Copyright
- Share
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About
Realistic models including watchtowers, barnyards, and grain mills are a significant category of ‘mingqi’ funerary ware and reveal much about the architecture and the military and agricultural life of the time. This model of a goat pen with an elevated fodder storage shed depicts an everyday scene of nearly 2,000 years ago. The pen is typical of low-fired Han funerary ceramics. Its green lead-silicate glaze that has taken on a silvery iridescence from burial in the ground. Lead glazing came into use in China around the second half of the first century BCE, and is thought to have been intended to imitate the patina of old bronze. The toxicity of lead meant such glazes were reserved for tomb furnishings rather than household wares.
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Places
Where the work was made
China
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Exhibition history
Shown in 4 exhibitions
An Englishman's Home, David Jones Ltd, Sydney, 1941 -
Chinese Ceramics, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 11 Aug 1965–12 Sep 1965
Early Chinese art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 26 Feb 1983–08 May 1983
Open Studio (brick vase clay cup jug), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 01 Jul 2023–07 Jan 2024
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Bibliography
Referenced in 2 publications
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Mr V V W Fretwell, Mr L G Harrison, Ivan McMeekin and J. Hepburn Myrtle (Compilators), Chinese ceramics, Sydney, 1965, 18. cat.no. 7
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Jackie Menzies, Early Chinese Art, Sydney, 1983, (illus.) not paginated. cat.no. XIII. See 'Further Information' for text.
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