Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time. --Francis Bacon
Victor Mair generous helped me track down the mysterious writing found on the interior of the bowl. Purchased from Sten as "Ming Wanli wreck" He was told by porcelain export in Jingdezhen it was Sanskrit for fu--which looks a lot like Chinese fu, now that you mention it. 福
Email with VM:
I thought something you said in your last message of
yesterday was very interesting—that perhaps this was a convention that was
popular during the Wanli times and that during that time it was something
people more easily recognized. Given the lack of a firm attribution
concerning the script, I think you must be right that it is a time sensitive
decoration and maybe went out of fashion (and that is why the curator at the
Met perhaps didn’t know so much about it either).
I think in Japanese and Chinese 梵字 is any script used to write Sanskrit?
Yes, and as you surmise, there were different scripts and styles for writing
Sanskrit.
If there were many different scripts used through the ages to write the
language, it must be hard to narrow down what is going on.
I got the bowl from the salvager in Malaysia Sten Sjostrand. Because he
published a book on the wreck (called the Wanli Wreck) with Roxanna Brown, I
believed he is on the up and up (I could be wrong, but Roxanna Brown was a
very unique and fascinating scholar—like yourself in that she is simply not
typical/is able to really think out of the box and so because she associated
herself with Sten I trusted his things were authentic).
I know the sad, sad story of Roxanna Brown.
He was told by a Jingdezhen ceramic expert that it was sanskrit for fu. But,
if the NPM says it is for heart it must be that. They would not get it
wrong, would they?
Well, I think the identification of this character is still up in the air.
I still have a gut feeling it was heading to Japan. Esoteric
Buddhism/Shingon is huge there and was huge there and you see so much
Siddham seed script there.
AND
Doesn't it seem strange that there is a script found on several specimen
(including imperial collection pieces) and no one knows what the script is
or can come to any conclusion about what the meaning is 福 or 佛?
Your colleague, my Facebook friend, Bob Mowry suggested it is a double
entendre--kind of like your colleague Wendy suggested, that it is Sanskrit
made to recall stylized "fu"--as that is what one would expect to be if it
was written in Chinese since they more often than not seemed to have fu or
shou, also as Wendy said....
Bob was suggesting that when in doubt,
the Chinese scholars might just say it is 福 since that is probably what it would be if it was Chinese...
To the non-expert (me!) it is surprising that the ceramics experts are not
sure if it is Chinese or Sanskrit and the Sanskrit experts don't recognize
the script and can't quite place it!
You're right about that.
British Museum--same character but listed as "no obvious meaning."
++
Regarding Leanne Ogasawara’s inquiry, below, I have consulted the following:
First and foremost, a book by John Ayers, now-retired Keeper of the Far
Eastern Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum (and my personal
Chinese-pot-guru for over sixty years): The Baur Collection, Geneva.
Chinese Ceramics, Volume Two: Ming Porcelains and Other Wares. Geneva,
Switzerland, 1969. (And now, obviously, out of print.)
No. 588, Plate A 185. “Blue-and-white dish of lotus form. Mark and reign
of Wan Li (1573-1619). Diameter 19.0 cm.
Moulded in the form of an open lotus flower with two ranks of sixteen
scalloped petals, the lower rank with projecting points on the outside; the
rim foliate; small, low foot. In the center inside is a medallion with a
Sanscrit character with ju-I heads, and round the outside the upper rank of
petals contains eight further characters alternating with floral sprays,
forming an inscription. The six-character mark is written underglaze blue.”
He further mentions similar bowls in several museum collections.
John’s book was revised and republished in Geneva in 1999,
Chinese Ceramics in the Baur Collection, Volume 1. The dish is illustrated
in Plate 78 [previously as Plate A185]. The physical description is the
same as before, but there is a change in the description of the characters:
“Inside is a medallion painted with the Sanscrit character for ’Buddha’
(Chinese fo) bordered with ru-i heads, and round the outside the upper rank
of petals contains eight further characters alternating with floral sprays.”
Another of my favorite authorities is Wang Qingzheng, of the
Shanghai Museum. His 368-page book, A Dictionary of Chinese Ceramics (in
English), Singapore, 2002, is absolutely indispensable in the study of
Chinese pots.
Under the topic of Motifs, on page 256, Mr. Wang lists: “Sanskrit (fan wen).
An ancient written language of India, this script is used as a decorative
element on temple vessels in the Ming dynasty. Sanskrit inscriptions,
mainly rendered in underglaze blue, are quotations from Buddhist scriptures
or incantations.” He illustrates a blue-and-white dish that is not foliated
like the one that John Ayers illustrated. This dish has a large, presumably
Sanskrit, central character, surrounded by three rows of other presumably
Sanskrit characters.
AND
Dear Leanne,
A number of bowls found in the Belitung shipwreck had pseudo-Arabic writing, and I've also seen pseudo-Siddham writing on various objects.
best,
VHM
Website showing the front
and base of a dish that seems to me to be an accurate example of the dish
that Leanne Ogasawara illustrates.
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