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Moon flask

Photo: Paul Macapia

Moon flask

15th century

In the early 15th century, the volume of overseas trade was significant and Arabs were prominent in China, acting as interpreters for diplomats and traders, as well as overseeing observatories. This flask is evidence of the continuing dialogue between Middle Eastern and Chinese aesthetic traditions. Both the form and the interlaced floral medallion are Islamic in origin.





Porcelain with underglaze cobalt-blue decoration
11 1/2 x 8 1/8 x 4 1/8in. (29.2 x 20.6 x 10.5cm)
Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection
48.167
Photo: Paul Macapia
location
Now on view at the Asian Art Museum

Resources

Exhibition HistoryLos Angeles, California, Los Angeles County Museum, Chinese Ceramics, 1952.

Portland, Oregon, Portland Art Museum, Gift to a City: Masterworks from the Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection in the Seattle Art Museum, Nov. 3 - 28, 1965. Cat. no. 43.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Porcelain Stories: From China to Europe, Feb. 17 - May 7, 2000.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Glaze, Pattern and Image: Decoration in Chinese Ceramics, Sept. 7 - Nov. 19, 2002.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Chinese Art: A Seattle Perspective, Dec. 22, 2007 - July 26, 2009.

Tokyo, Japan, Suntory Museum of Art, Luminous Jewels: Masterpieces of Asian Art From the Seattle Art Museum, July 25 - Sept. 6, 2009 (Kobe, Japan, Kobe City Museum, Sept. 19 - Dec. 6, 2009; Kofu, Japan, Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art, Dec. 23, 2009 - Feb. 28, 2010; Atami, Japan, MOA Museum of Art, Mar. 13 - May 9, 2010; Fukuoka, Japan, Fukuoka Art Museum, May 23 - July 19, 2010).

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Luminous: The Art of Asia, Oct. 13, 2011 - Jan. 8, 2012.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Boundless: Stories of Asian Art, Feb. 8, 2020 - ongoing.
Published ReferencesFinlay, Robert. "The Pilgrim Art: Cultures of Porcelain in World History". Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2010, illustrated pl. 13

Kawai, Masatomo, Yasuhiro Nishioka, Yukiko Sirahara, editors, "Luminous Jewels: Masterpieces of Asian Art From the Seattle Art Museum", 2009, The Yomiuri Shimbun, catalogue number 76

Emerson, Julie, Jennifer Chen, & Mimi Gardner Gates, "Porcelain Stories, From China to Europe", Seattle Art Museum, 2000, pg. 61

"Gift to a City" exhibition catalogue. Portland, OR: Portland Art Museum, 1965, cat. no. 43

"Handbook, Seattle Art Museum: Selected Works from the Permanent Collections." Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 1951, p. 75 (b&w).

Foong, Ping, Xiaojin Wu, and Darielle Mason. "An Asian Art Museum Transformed." Orientations vol. 51, no. 3 (May/June 2020): p. 61, reproduced fig. 22 (installation view).

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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