Funerary Urn (Hunping)
Western Jin dynasty (A.D. 265–316), late 3rd century
- Medium
- Stoneware with olive-green glaze and molded and applied decoration
- Classification
- Funerary Object
- Dimensions
- 48.7 × 27.5 cm (19 3/16 × 10 13/16 in.); Diam.: 27.5 cm (10 13/16 in.)
- Culture
- China
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Through prior bequests of Mary Hooker Dole and Grace Brown Palmer; through prior gifts of Josephine P. Albright in memory of Alice Higinbotham Patterson, and Mrs. Kent S. Clow; Russell Tyson, Robert C. Ross endowments
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This complex and imaginatively modeled vessel is known as an “urn of the soul,” a symbolic dwelling for the spirit of the deceased. A profusion of figures was molded and applied to its sealed lid, which takes the form of a multistory pavilion. In the balcony-like mouth-rim, a tortoise supports a large vertical tablet, a common form of memorial stone. The real and mythical creatures on the vessel—birds, monkeys, bears, dragons, kneeling figures, and immortals riding dragons—all follow the iconography of early Chinese funerary art. Intermingled with these images, however, are depictions of the Buddha, who is identified by his meditating posture, topknot, and halo. The marginal role of Buddhist art in this decorative scheme reflects the adoption of the alien Indian religion, as the Chinese then understood it, into a hospitable mélange of different spiritual beliefs. Additionally, this jar reflects a formative stage in the development of China’s renowned celadon glaze, which became more uniform in color and texture over subsequent centuries.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
