Blue and White Barn with Design of Pavilion in Underglaze Red

Yuan Dynasty
Overall height: 29.5cm
Width: 20.5cm

The blue and white barn with design of pavilion in underglaze red is a representative artwork of blue and white with underglaze red artistic porcelains. As an artwork made in the Yuan Dynasty, it was unearthed in 1974 in Jingdezhen City, Jiangxi Province and is preserved in Jiangxi Provincial Museum.

The barn is 29.5cm in height and 20.5cm in width, with the overall design being a pavilion-shaped barn. The pavilion is of exquisite design and fitted with upturned eaves, vermilion ridgepoles, and carved rails, etc., which fully embody the features of timber-frame architecture in the south of the Yangtze River. The pavilion was designed to be flexible, with a lid to shut the barn. There is a beatific couplet on both sides of the bottom floor of the barn tower. The most exquisite ornaments are the figurines in the pavilion and the kiosks at both sides. Some of them are holding fans in their hands, some are playing the lutes, some are blowing bamboo flute, some are playing the clarinet, and others are swinging their long sleeves, dancing. There are a total of 18 figurines on the upper, lower, left and right sides, all in diversified gestures.

Blue and white with underglaze red is outstanding traditional porcelain fabricated in Jingdezhen City and also, is one of the artistic porcelains with the most distinctive Chinese features. Blue and white porcelain with underglaze red refers to the combination of blue-and-white porcelain and underglaze red fired on the same ware, which requires extremely high technical level. Wares with two extremely bright colors are rarely seen in the products handed down from ancient times. In contrast, the barn was simultaneously decorated with bluish-white glaze, red glaze, brown glaze, underglaze red and underglaze bluish-white by the porcelain craftsman, thus presenting flowery color and luster, peculiar shape as well as unparalleled exquisiteness.