Chinese, Korea and Japanese Art At The Museum Of Fine Art, Boston MA

A few weeks ago, I went to the Museum of Fine Arts, as you remember, and I shot some video in there and talked about the Chinese ceramics collection, and I promised to go back. Well, we went back today, and I brought my son with me. One of my sons, I have three of them, and one of them was available, and he expressed some interest in coming along, so he came and he actually held the camera and helped me out a great deal at the museum. We had a fun sort of dad day at the museum. I really enjoyed it, and this is what we did. We looked at the bronzes, we looked at some of the Korean works of art, we looked at some Japanese things. There's more to do in there, and I think we'll probably will, and I think I'll probably do get up to the Peabody Museum in Salem sometime in the very near future and do the same there, and I'm hoping he comes along with me again, because it was awfully nice having company and talking about things and, you know, all that great stuff. So here's how it went, and I hope you enjoy it. Record. I did. You're gone? Okay. This is the bronze department at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and it's one of the oldest bronze collections in the United States. Most of the pieces here were brought into America out of China between the 1890s and around 1920, and into this museum you're going to find a lot of pieces from the Shang Dynasty, the Western Zhou Dynasty, and so forth. All of them are tomb pieces for the most part, and most of them are for ritualistic purposes, all right? And here you have a very fine zhu, a little wine vessel over here, and this dates to the Shang Dynasty. It has exceptional form, beautiful patination, and it was bought by a fund of the museum back many, many years ago, and again, it's a classic form and dates from the Shang and the Yan and Yang period, and then if you move next to it, you have a piece over here, and this came from the Hoyt Collection, and he was one of the major benefactors, you may remember from the previous video, we talked about him, because he left most of his collection to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, there's a very good book on the topic, and this is a ritualistic tripod from the Shang, and then next to it is a piece from the Grace Edwards Fund that was bought some years ago. It's a very fine ritual food vessel, Western Zhou Dynasty, 10th century BC, and what's remarkable about it is the patina, the color of the bronze is absolutely exceptional all the way through, great color, great relief work, good detail, and fairly remarkable condition considering it was buried for a long time. And then if you slip over here, you have one of these smaller, this is another type of ritual wine cup, these are zhus made in the Middle Shang Dynasty, it's a very different form than the first one we looked at. It has a simpler exterior, it doesn't have necessarily all of the additions onto it, the posts and so forth, and this was made around the 14th century period during the early Yang period, and this particular shape is very specific to that era. And then if you slip over next to it, you have a piece from the Bigelow Collection, William Sturgis Bigelow was a major benefactor to the museum back over 100 years ago. This was donated by his family, they had a huge collection, he lived in Japan, he lived in China, and he became an enormous collector over his times, and this is a wine vessel called the Zhai, and it was done during the Shang Dynasty during the Anyang period again. But spectacular quality, spectacular quality, and it just keeps going on and on and on. Here's a very fine Western Zhou example, 9th century BC, this is known as a zhun because of the shape, and the area of the bronze has some rather heavy areas of patination on it. Some areas you'll see patination is missing, and indicate that it was originally, the surface would have been looked when it was done. The chances are, if you look over here on the side, and you see where there's no patina left, it may be because somebody tried to clean it at some point in its life, or something banged it, chipped it, and the patina literally fell off, which can happen. Then you have a gui, a ceremonial food vessel, this was for meals, and this is another one of these amazing Western Zhou burial pieces, done with archaistic masks underneath, done in fairly shallow relief, with protective masks above the archaic mask, trimming around the outside, and then archaic animals and creatures edging on top and bottom. Very exceptional. Now we're moving over to this, this is a Shang Dynasty example, and it's one of my favorites in the museum, because it's so energetic, it's got so much going on, and it's in such incredibly good condition. It was acquired many years ago, but it's got a fantastic patina on it, and this was a burial piece, it was a ritual wine container, and the workmanship on it is extraordinary, and it's incredible because it's so complete. All of the elements are there, there aren't any broken off arms, as you can see, these protective arms coming off the piece, guarding the wine, and then you have these very nice creatures embossed into the side, below these ribbed areas, and the sort of flow of patina coming in and out of the bronze. In places it's patinated, other places it's not, because that's a reflection of how it was buried. So parts of it weren't exposed probably to too much raw dirt and so forth, or it just didn't react to the metal for whatever reason, but that is one of the best bronzes in the museum's entire collection, and it's because it's in a very rare form and in incredibly rare, you know, fine condition. And then over this one, this is a food ding, this would be a big food vessel, it's very large for one of these. It dates to the 11th century, it was made during the Western Zhou period, and you've seen these cauldron forms before, but again, done in that low relief, 11th century BC, so today it's about 3,500, 3,600 years old. The surface on it is excellent, undisturbed, and that's one of the things you always want to look for in bronzes. The problem today is with the reproductions, they're able to replicate patinas with considerable accuracy, so you have to be extremely careful. But one of the patinas they really can't replicate is the type you see on this, this type of thing. This is another ding ritual bronze from the Shang dynasty, and it has this very smooth, it almost looks like powdered malachite has been added to the surface of the bronze, and it gives it a very smooth finish. So far they've not been able to replicate that with fakes, it usually has a more crusty appearance to it, but if you look at areas up around the top of the mythical beast there, the patina is extremely smooth, it looks like it was almost painted on, and that is generally not something they can replicate today. The inside of it has a lot of crystallizing and whatnot inside the piece, but on the outside it's extremely smooth. There's some lumpy bits of oxidization on the legs, but not on the body. And it's again a very, very rare bronze. And then over here to this, this is another wine vessel, this is a Hu, and it was made during the Western Zhou period, 9th to 10th century, and again you have that spectacular surface and patina on it, beautifully done all the way around, just exceptional. And it has its lid, and notice the arrow handles on the side, these little tubular shaped handles, that style was carried right through to the 20th century on Hu-formed vases, but they got larger, some of them got quite large, they incorporated into the famous arrow game vases that were done during the Ming dynasty. These tubes were used in all kinds of pots that were vertical, and it started here with these bronzes, it was really the first time they were seen on pieces, and they date to that era. A lot of people think they dated to the Qing dynasty, they didn't, they were done long before that. And then over here you have a, this is called a pan, and it looks like a pan, but it's a ritual food vessel, again, spectacularly well cast, and this was bought by the museum some years ago from the special fund, and extremely fine example. The museum can afford to buy things on occasion because it's independently run, and they have their own money, so if something good comes along, the MFA is a wonderful, has wonderful opportunities to acquire things as they come along. Alright, and then up above here you have, this is something the kids all like when they come here, is this coiled snake, western Zhou dynasty, very unusual, very rare, probably created to serve as protection in the tomb, I suspect, something like that, it was bought by the Willard Fund some years ago, and it dates to the 10th century BC, and again, exceedingly rare, exceedingly rare. And then you have ritual wine vessels like this one, this is a very well-known type, also done during the western Zhou period, 10th to 9th century, it still has its lid, it even has its hinge on the back with its rings that are attached, and then this mask handle that comes down, and this beautifully shaped body, very elegantly done, beautifully proportional all the way around, it's inscribed on the bottom and located on the interior of the lid, and then it has this nice archaistic decorated spout coming off of it that is full size, it never got damaged, you see these sometimes and they've been shortened because they break, and they get restuck, and then somebody cuts the end off, that's how long they typically were. Alright, you have another tomb piece here, this is a Shang and Yang period, these are called Zhuns, and very nice patina on it, well done, very fine detail, the dowry masks, again the archaistic masks, around the exterior, it's had some repairs to it, I think, it looks to be a hole on one side, remember these were buried, and this was buried over 3,000 years ago, so it's got to have areas that corrode through, you see that on bronzes from time to time, especially in the thin spots, but then you have these very nice acanthus leaves, or bok choy leaves at the top, running around the top as lappets, and below them are ferocious demonic masks to protect the piece, and then hopping over to this, this is a really fine, this is a Gui, you see these fairly often, this form is still produced today, in jades and in porcelains, it's a very classical food container, today they make them mostly as incense burners actually, but this was originally a Western Zhou food container, and again you have that incredibly smooth, fine, green patina running around the piece, that tells you really what age it is, and then if you look up inside the piece, down inside, over there, you see all these bits, these chunks, and these are corrosions that have grown out of the bronze as it's aged, and things sat on the bronze, and the bronze leached out these, these, these verdigris colors in crystal form, and that is something you can't fake, you can add it to the surface, the fakers will add it to the surface, but when you examine them closely, you'll see that this stuff actually is leaching out of the bronze itself, and this is one of the great examples, and then the last one we're going to look at is this, this is a very fine Poo, they call it a ritual wine vessel, extremely elegant, very understated, extremely low relief carving, or casting in the, in the, in the metal, it's almost imperceptible until you get right up to it, and then you can see there's so much, so much decoration on this thing, and the color is great, the color on this is just great, and this was a, again another museum donation, but it's complete, it still has its bottom foot ring, there's no damage to it, and the surface is perfect, and this was, this was made during the Western Zhou, as I said, 11th century BC, extremely nice. This is the Islamic department at the museum, and in here they put together a really interesting display of Chinese porcelains with the Persian replicas that were made in the, in the 14th and 15th century, and so forth, because they adored the Chinese stuff so much, they decided to make their own, and if you come over here, for example, this is a Chinese Ming, Yuan dynasty ewer, all right, obviously, and when it got to the Middle East, they, the handle got removed, they put a metal handle on it, they put a spout, a gold tip spout on it, and then they added a hinged lid, all right, for the Middle Eastern market, but then if you go down one, this is done very much in the manner of Ming Yonglu porcelains, this is Persian, and it was made in Iran at the time on Frickware, and the, the, the visual comparison to the Chinese stuff is really quite exceptional. They made a lot of things in Iran that were mimicking Chinese art, but you don't often see the pieces that were so well done as this, and then going up to the top here, you have this Yuan cobalt ground with white slip decoration, dragon in relief coming off of it, this is one of the rarest of all the types of the Yuan dynasty, there are only a few of these plates known in the world, there's one or two ewers that have similar decoration, but this is really one of the finest examples, and my understanding is this turned up in an auction up in Canada some years ago, and was bought and sold to the museum, but an extraordinary, extraordinary thing, but then you go down below it, and you have what appears to be a very typical Wanli export ware like you would find in Holland during this, during the 16th, early 17th century, and this is actually Persian, this is a Persian dish done in the Wanli style, because they were exporting the original Wanli pieces, to the Middle East as gifts, and as parts of trade, and the Persians liked it so much they replicated it in slipware, all right, and then there are numerous other examples, this one over here in the middle looks like a celadon that's been done in relief with lotus blossoms, that's actually Persian, and it was again done to mimic 17th and 18th century Chinese porcelains that were available at the time, but the shape is a little bit different, and down below you have a bottle vase in blue and white, it's done very much in the manner of Chinese transitional wares of the mid-1600s, but this was also done in Iran, and it really shows how much trade was going on, and how much they appreciated the work from the period, it's quite exceptional, and if you get the chance to come to the museum, you might want to come into the Korean department, they have some of the rarest ceramics in any museum collection in North America, one of them of course is this, and many of you will recognize it, it's a moon jar, these were produced during the Joseon period, 18th century, and this is a rather monumental one, it's very large, there were lots of these moon jars made, but very few of them were successfully fired as well as this one, this one is perfectly fired, has a very good bluish-white color, used a little bit of rosin in the surface from chemical reactions during the firing and oxidization processes that went on in the kilns, but other than that, it's a spectacular example, and it's been in the museum for quite a while, let's see here, it says it was donated in 1950 by the Hoyt family, and again, the Hoyts, he was a very eclectic collector, and this is an exceedingly fine example, and not one that you're going to see outside of a collection, maybe in Japan, there are a few, there may be a few in Korea, but that's about it, that's about it, this is a really, really great example, and then the next case over, you've got a couple of very rare scholar's objects, you've got a reticulated large dragon brush pot in the background, early 19th century, but it's a beautiful dragon on it, nicely reticulated, perfectly glazed all around, all the way around, and a decidedly blue tinge to the glaze, and beside it is a bamboo sort of formed example with crosses in it, and these you see in reproductions quite a bit, a lot of copies of these are made, they turn up in auctions all the time, they are not authentic, this is a real one, also Joshon period, 19th century, and again exceedingly rare, and this also came from the Hoyt collection, and then moving across is the peach shaped water dropper, scholars table objects like this in multiple colors are very, very, very rare, just put it that way, it's also a Hoyt collection piece, but notice the underglaze blue, and you have the iron red decoration, and the opening to drip the water out is on the left side, up near the top, and it appears to be in very, very fine overall condition, just exceptional, and there's the drain hole right there, or the drip hole that you use to add water to your inkstone, and this is a heck of a grouping, and then if you move across over to this side, you've got these sort of familiar faces, but very fine examples, you have this iron decorated jar with dragon and cloud pattern, this is a 19th or late 18th century example, they date it as 19th, it could be, certainly could be, it was inscribed at the bottom, that's maybe how they ended up dating it as being 19th, 18th rather than 19th, but beautifully done, beautifully done, perfectly potted, and to the right of it is a more typical example, a blue one with a phoenix on it, the big phoenix flying through the sky amongst the clouds, and this is they believe an 18th century example also, the potting looks right, the high shoulder, the way it's done, this is a big pot, it's about, looks like it's about 16 or 18 inches tall, and then to the right of it is a very rare underglaze copper red decorated jar, and these are very, very rare, this is a grapevine pattern on it, it's, dates to the 18th century, and possibly 19th century as well, they're sort of saying 18th and 19th centuries these were produced, and as I said, dating them with enormous precision is difficult unless they know when it was collected, and that doesn't happen very often, and then to the right of it is something as a ritual bowl, now these never turn up, because most of them were broken, it was made during the 17th century in Korea, and if you were to look at it, you'd think it was made, you know, art modern done in the 1930s, so it has a very deco look to it, it wasn't, it was done around 1670, and this was a ritual bowl meant for a temple, and very few of these exist, they were often just broken and thrown away, and they'd get another one, it has a sort of soft greenish blue glaze on the inside and outside, but it's, whoops, a very thin glaze, and that's that, and around the corner in the Korean department, you have this, this very fine plum blossom vase, as they're called, or Maeping vase, that's another name for them, this one was done during the Joseon period, or the Goryeo period, excuse me, beautifully done, and these are pretty rare, they have an iron glaze to them, and then they're carved and inlaid with white clay, and that's how they get the relief decoration on them, it's also the way they do a lot of celadons that we'll be looking at in a minute, and all the way to the bottom, and they're very primitive looking, but they're highly valued and highly collected, and there's only a handful in this style in the world, just a few of them survived, most of them were broken and lost and destroyed and whatnot, all right, and then coming over, the next rarity in the case is this double gourd shaped ewer with inlaid grape vines, very, very fine work, extremely nice colored celadon, dating to the 13th century, again Goryeo period, but very, very, very rare, and beautifully potted, and this was a gift from the Hoyt family, again the Hoyts had a huge Korean ceramic collection, I'll just put it that way, and then over next to those are this, this ribbed Goryeo era pear-shaped bottle vase, trumpet-shaped mouth on it, and this is really amazing, this is the superb potting of it, considering the 12th century date, a very, very advanced potting technique, extremely well proportioned from the lower portion up through the neck and then the trumpet mouth at the top, the celadon glaze came out really, really well. The Koreans accelerated at celadons, certainly on a par with the Chinese at the time, and may have been a little bit ahead of them on a number of areas, a lot of people think that the Korean celadons were superior to the Chinese celadons, and next to it is a Goryeo dynasty bronze done in the same form for comparison, and again, technically a masterpiece, this is beautifully done, simple, elegant, and quite fantastic. All right, and then we come over here, this is one of the great gems in the collection for a couple of reasons, you have this big plum blossom meiping vase with white flower inlay, and you'll notice it has a rather large kintsugi repair on it, because this was such a highly prized example, I'm sure that it was in a Japanese collection, it got damaged, and they did a gold lacquer repair to it, because this was such a rare example, the pattern of these floral devices floating loosely like this on this are exceedingly rare, and this is a big vase, this is not a 10 or 12 inch meiping vase, this is about probably 15 to 18 inches in height, it's a large one made during this 12th century, but it's one of the examples in the world of a meiping, and one of the very best examples of one with a simple floral decoration on it, painted in the round, very, very unusual, and then beside it you have these tiles, this beautiful tile, and it has a lot of, it almost has an Islamic look to it, in some ways, the way it was gridded and laid out, but it's again probably a 12th or early 13th century example, decorated with celadon glaze, and inlaid with white and black clay, and they would lay it out, carve it, and then apply the clay, and then fire it, and the inlaid clacks are also incredibly rare, because they were difficult to make, because they had to be flat, and there's an element firing porcelain clays, keeping them laid flat in the kiln was difficult, because as they heat up and dry and so forth, they tend to distort in shape, and this one came out perfectly, and then moving along to the left of it, you see a couple of pieces, some of you have seen in some of the Korean art books around the world, on the right you have a very, very rare inlaid of white and black, a melon-formed teapot, beautiful, or a wine pot, beautiful example, excellently ribbed, and with a tiny, tiny, tiny, delicate lid on it, the lid is quite small, and probably had a string attached to it at one point, so that you wouldn't muff it and drop the thing while you were moving it around, and there's a loop on the back handle, you'll notice it was also a hole in it, and that was a spot for the other end of the string to attach, so it wouldn't get separated from the teapot, it was rather practical consideration, you do see that on teapots all over the world, and then down front here, you have a very rare floral-shaped stand with a cup in it, and these cup stands are frequently reproduced in copies, this is obviously a real one, and it came out of the Jack collection back in 1935, and the stand appears to be the original stand to the cup, because often they mix and match, somebody will have a stand, somebody else will find a cup, and they'll fish around until they can find two that belong together, these look like they started out life together, very, very nice, excuse the background noise, they're doing construction work in the museum, on a new exhibit for Ji Bai Shi's work, that'll be starting in a few months, so we may come back and visit for that, and then next to that is a very rare bamboo-formed hewer, not too dissimilar in general shape from the previous one that was inlaid, but this one has leaves on the exterior, and a conical-shaped lid, which is quite large and very noticeable, but again, has that small loop on the back, and another loop on the handle, so the two could be kept together when they were, you know, put into storage to dry out or be used, and there's a bamboo-shaped handle, the handle has bamboo on it, extremely unusual, and then moving over here, you have a cup collection, all of them are royal period, the one on the far right, that cup stand, is extremely fine example, beautifully decorated with sort of acanthus leaf decorations coming down it, but very finely potted, and the color is superb, and they obviously started out life together, very, very fine example, and it shows you how elegant they can be with very little decoration, just simple colors, clear colors, and very, very, very good shape, and next to it is a conical cup in the back there, that has an inlay in it of two different colors, black, and it looks like a green tone that they put into it, beautiful, with a pointed bottom, it has no handle, this would have been put down, if it was full, onto a stand of some kind made for it, or you just have to hold onto it until you were done, and then there are several other examples that many of you've seen before, one of them is a flower-shaped stand in the back, that's the biggest one, very unusual, large size, perfectly potted, and has basically the same color as the second cup stand we looked at just a few seconds ago, almost identical in coloration, probably came from the same period, maybe even from the same kiln that was producing it, this sort of material was made for very wealthy people in the imperial household, typically where most of it was made, and then hopping along over here, the only one I'm really going to talk about is that four-handled jar in the middle, Goyo period, 12th century, with gilded loops, beautifully, beautifully done, and a very, very faint, very subtle, faint inlay decoration of flowers onto it, and some sort of loppet, cerulean heads running around the mouth, excellent, excellent example, and the color is perfect all the way down, and that's, you know, with Korean wares you don't always see such even colors, you just don't see them that often, but this is a very, very fine example, and the Korean department's worth visiting, if you haven't seen it, if you like Celadon ceramics, and you like Korean ceramics, you definitely want to come and check it out. All right, and then you get into the Japanese department here, it's a very good department, it's especially heavy in sculptures, Japanese, Momoyamo period, Heian period, sculptures from Buddhist temples, which have caused some political upheavals over the years, because the Japanese very much want to get some of them back, and most of them were donated prior to 1910, back when these things were readily available, here's an exceptional no mask, it's a very, very fine example, it looks to be probably an 18th century one, great detail, very good condition, and you'll notice that the teeth, if you can see them, are slightly blackened, because in the theaters there was a technique they used where they applied this sort of black tire to the teeth, and they thought that was a sign of elegance, not that they do today, and right around the corner from these, you have a wall with some exceptionally fine Meiji period in rows, tobacco pouches, and knives, and pipes, and these are all accoutrements made by leading Japanese artists of the day, there's a board next to it that identifies all of them, the ones that are identifiable, because not all of them can be, and sometimes people did copy names, but these are all pretty early gifts to the museum, from what I recall, and they came from the Weld collection in 1911, the Bigelow collection, because back at the turn of the last century, Japanese art was as much interest to the west as Chinese art, and the museum, because of that, was able to get huge amounts of donations from the wealthy benefactors, and they're still here to this day, and on this one over here, you have a really fine tobacco pouch with an ivory fuline on top, and a very, very fine leather pouch with an ornament on the face of it, and above that is an extraordinarily fine small in row with gilt on gilt lacquer, and this is probably a four-section box, most of them are beautifully done, and to the left of it is a one here that is a favorite of a monkey under a bar reaching up, with three monkeys above it as the netsuki, sort of clutching each other, it's a very fine Meiji example signed on the bottom, and so forth, and they just run down the list, and over on the left, you've got some really, really fine tobacco pouches, and these would have been tobacco pipes, rather, and these would have been for very wealthy Japanese businessmen, figures of the day, and so forth, these were not the typical pipes that you would get, you know, in the local store, these were all custom made by artisans, and were extremely expensive, even back then, because they're all handworked, and many of these workers, metal workers, of course, got into this line of work, because the shogunate abolished the samurai class in the 1870s, and all these really fine metal workers that made these great pieces, these metal work for the samurai swords, the manuki, the subas, all that stuff, had to find new ways to make a living, so they diverted their skills into making extremely fine decorative accessories, and working with other artists who could do lacquer, and making inros, netsukis, okimono, and this sort of thing, and on the right there, you see some toggles that would have been attached to the belt, worn by somebody in a Japanese robe, attached to a tobacco pouch, exceptional quality, and great stuff. And that was the day, we got there fairly early, what was very funny was that we got there at around, a little after 10, five minutes after 10, the museum opened at 10, and one of the outer lots, one of the lots near the building was already full, one of the museum's own lots, we went to the second lot, and there were four spaces left in there, at four minutes after 10, and I wondered what was going on, and when we walked around to the main entrance, we saw what was going on, there was a Van Gogh exhibit that was opening this morning, so there was a huge crowd, school buses, and all kinds of people there, so the video was a little noisy in a few places, we had to wait to do some of the recording, because there were so many people in some of the galleries while we were there, that it would have been impossible to record anything, anyway, it was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed spending time with one of my children, it means a lot to me, as I'm sure if you have kids, it means a lot to you too, to spend time with them doing something you enjoy, and I think he got a kick out of it, he grew up around this stuff, and all my children did, and they often, we don't get into museums together often enough, I suppose, and I think he found it, it put together a lot of the loose ends, so to speak, that he had heard about growing up, and he's now in his late 20s, and it was a lot of fun, it was a great time, and then we had lunch, we went to a very late lunch afterwards, at around around three o'clock, 3 30 in the afternoon, we went out and grabbed some food, and I came back to Cape Ann, and I dropped him off at his place, and that was it, all right, so anyway, we'll be doing it again, when we go into the PBD Essex, and I told him we might do some historic houses, that might be fun, and he seemed interested in that, so maybe I've got a cameraman now, when he has some time, all right, see you all next time.