From the Neolithic period (ca. 10,000–2000 BCE) to the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), the art of Chinese pottery making developed as much in response to functional and aesthetic considerations as it did to technological improvements. The forty-five pottery vessels selected from the MacLean Collection provide insights into the material culture of early China.
Using materials like loess sediment soils in northwestern China and kaolinic clay in the Southeast, Chinese potters created a characteristic inventory for both daily uses and as ritual objects. Over the centuries, the quality and quantity of Chinese potteries improved with major technological breakthroughs. Object shapes developed from hand modeling and coil building to the use of potter’s wheels. New kiln designs and new heights in kiln temperatures enabled production of high-fired stoneware, producing vessels that were much harder than low-fired earthenware, and introducing glazing into the technical repertoire of pottery making.
Eastern Zhou (771-220 BCE)
Ash-glazed stoneware, H. 10.5 in.
2001.33, Cat 7
Although they share many common traits, Chinese potteries exhibit considerable chronological and regional distinctions in both form and decoration. Early on, in the western Yellow River Valley, buff-bodied earthenware with painted geometric patterns prevailed, while at the eastern end, the thin-walled black vessels emerged. Many pottery shapes first appeared in cast bronzes while other shapes vary according to regional aesthetic choices.
About the MacLean Collection
In the early 1970s Barry L. MacLean and his late wife, Mary Ann, began to collect ancient pottery from all over the world. During the next decade they began to narrow the focus to material from East and Southeast Asia. This in turn led to collecting ancient bronze from those regions and then to collect stone sculpture and architectural fragments. By the early 1990s, objects were sourced through a wide range of dealers and auction houses all around the world. The MacLean Collection now consists of more than five thousand objects from Neolithic times to the present.