Large plate with design of scrolling flowers

Among porcelain wares, probably no single type has been as widely admired as Chinese blue-and-white. The technique of painting with cobalt on a hard white porcelain body that was then covered with a clear glaze and fired at very high temperatures was perfected during the Ming Dynasty. The Cornell dish belongs early in the tradition; the surface is mottled here and there with blackish spots, the result of a supersaturation of cobalt resulting in what collectors call the “heaped and piled effect” characteristic of much blue-and-white of the early fifteenth century. In contrast to the monochrome-glazed stonewares of the earlier Song Dynasty, which relied for their appeal primarily on elegance of form and subtle effects of single-color glazes, Ming blue-and-white introduced a rich decorative vocabulary of floral and other motifs into the art of ceramics, and strong brushwork became as important as careful potting and glazing. Blue-and-white dishes of the size seen here have been eagerly sought worldwide ever since they first appeared as triumphant testimonials to the technological mastery of Chinese potters. (From “A Handbook of the Collection: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art,” 1998)