enticz: 'Kitchen Qing' Blue And White Porcelains

Friday, November 1, 2013

'Kitchen Qing' Blue And White Porcelains

Pictures below show the Chinese blue and white porcelain bowls and plates from my collection. The decorations includes a lingzhi fungus (Glossy Ganoderma) motif in the center medallion, a fungus scroll at the mouth-rim, and a lotus scroll above a band of lotus panels on the exterior.

Blue and white porcelain of this type was exported to Southeast Asia from China in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries. The designs drawn on these porcelains particularly neat and without any shading. As such, they are finer examples of 'kitchen Qing' than normally encountered.

Highly durable, blue and white dishes was used on a daily basis in the Straits Chinese kitchen for both dining and for making offerings on the household altar, on account of the blue and white colouring being associated with mourning.

The sacred lingzhi fungus is the emblem of immortality and longevity. In combination with the lotus flower which is the emblem of summer and fruitfulness, the bowl represents everything the Chinese symbolism preaches, a rich and long life.