Exhibitions East Lansing. Silk Road to Clipper Ship: Trade, Changing Markets, and East Asian Ceramics. Kresge Art Museum at Michigan State University. The Curated Object

Imari fish plate with phoenix and hollyhock designs
Japan, mid-19th century
Porcelain with underglaze blue and overglaze enamel designs
UMMA, Gift of the William T. and Dora G. Hunter Collection

Silk Road to Clipper Ship: Trade, Changing Markets, and East Asian Ceramics
May 3 – August 1, 2008
                         
This exhibition, organized by the University of Michigan Museum of Art and drawn from their renowned collection, covers over 1000 years of Chinese porcelains to illustrate the important role of foreign trade and changing domestic markets in stimulating Chinese potters- and their counterparts in Japan and Korea- to continually reinvent their repertoire of shapes and decorative techniques. The first part traces the exchange along the Silk Road between the Chinese Han (206 BCE–220 CE) dynasty and ancient Persia and the Mediterranean world between the second and tenth centuries. The second part features colored porcelains made for domestic use and foreign exchange during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911); and the final section focuses on the competition between kilns for imperial patronage and the Chinese influence on later Japanese and Korean ceramic traditions.

For more information please visit: Kresge Art Museum, Michigan State University

-Joanne Molina