Dating the parts of a teapot

A reign mark below, a replacement lid above#

In the photograph of ewer C81.136, a domed lid sits neatly over the neck. A second photograph takes you underneath the vessel. There, inside a double ring, are the six characters 大明宣德年製, meaning “made in the Xuande reign of the Great Ming.”

The Hong Kong catalogue assigns the ewer to the Xuande reign (1426–1435) and identifies the present lid as a replacement. Read that last detail back into the photograph. The assembled vessel has a date for its body and an open question about the date of its lid.^{No. 85, p. 196 (PDF 466)}

Measuring what survived#

The pot excavated at Shuijiaoshe in Tainan has a rounded body, a broad mouth and a surviving loop handle. Its lid is missing. The catalogue gives the mouth diameter as 4 cm and the surviving height as 4.6 cm. In the entry, the short word 殘高 tells you what the second measurement includes.

The Qing burial gives the pot an archaeological context. It supplies neither the year of firing nor the profile of the lost lid. In a photograph caption or a scale drawing, label 4.6 cm “surviving height” and leave the full height open.^{No. 8, p. 48 (PDF 50)}

A poem with a date of its own#

On a pair of round Yixing pots from the former Qing court collection, a poem fills one face and pine trees and rocks fill the other. The Palace Museum catalogue identifies 1742 as the year the emperor composed the poem. It dates the pots more broadly to the Qianlong reign.

A catalogue note can therefore say “Qianlong-period pots bearing a poem composed in 1742.” The date follows the poem when it is copied onto a new surface. The year the potter made either vessel and the date the verses were applied are separate questions.^{No. 20, pp. 50–51 (PDF 53–54)}

Make a record of your own#

Try this on a museum label or an auction description. Give each component or event a line of its own. Add the catalogue number and page so someone else can check your reading.