bianhu (pilgrimage flask) with dancing monkey, unknown maker from China

Artwork Overview

bianhu (pilgrimage flask) with dancing monkey
bianhu (pilgrimage flask) with dancing monkey
bianhu (pilgrimage flask) with dancing monkey
600–700s, early Tang dynasty (618 CE–907 CE)
bianhu (pilgrimage flask) with dancing monkey , 600–700s, early Tang dynasty (618 CE–907 CE)
Where object was made: China
Material/technique: molded porcelain
Dimensions:
Object Height/Width/Depth (Height x Width x Depth): 15.9 x 12 x 6 cm
Object Height/Width/Depth (Height x Width x Depth): 6 1/4 x 4 3/4 x 2 3/8 in
Credit line: Museum purchase: R. Charles and Mary Margaret Clevenger Art Acquisition Fund
Accession number: 2010.0030
On display: Loo Gallery
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Exhibition Label: "Nature/Natural," Feb-2011, Kris Ercums This pilgrimage flask encapsulates the circuits of exchange that facilitated the transmission of Buddhism across Asia. The tradition of carrying small ceramic flasks with an image or contents of devotion appears to have first developed in the Mediterranean world, where it was used by both Romans and early Christians. As the practice spread to Persia (present day Iran), Central Asian merchants brought metal prototypes to China where craftsmen translated the shapes, designs, and motifs into earthenware. This accounts for the complex and multivalent imagery found on this flask. Known as bianhu or flattened flasks, this vessel features a voluptuous dancing monkey holding a wine cup and ewer with design from Sassanian culture (a pre-Islamic Persian empire, 224-651). Made of soft white porcelain pinched into a mold and covered with a light translucent glaze, vessels such as this were popular funerary items, and expressed a fascination with the foreign and exotic that characterized this time period.