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FULL: Materials Lab Workshop: Shaping Chinese Jun Ware

Lobed Flowerpot with Bracketed Foliate Rim, Chinese, probably 15th century. Numbered Jun ware: light gray stoneware with variegated purple and blue glaze; with Chinese numeral 3 (san) inscribed on base before firing.
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane, 1942.185.5.

Workshop

Harvard Art Museums
32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA

This event is at capacity.

Chinese potters employed multiple techniques to create the wide array of ceramic vessel shapes featured in the exhibition Adorning the Inner Court: Jun Ware for the Chinese Palace (on view May 20–August 13, 2017). Although many everyday classic Jun ware forms were thrown on the potter’s wheel as early as the 11th and 12th century, it is believed that press molds were used to produce the high-precision lobed flowerpots that were collected and used at Beijing’s imperial palace beginning in the 18th century.

After viewing relevant works in the galleries and in the Art Study Center with Melissa Moy, the Alan J. Dworsky Associate Curator of Chinese Art, we will spend time in the Materials Lab, where Kathy King, director of education at the Harvard Ceramics Program, will demonstrate throwing and altering a form based on one of the foliate flowerpot shapes featured in the exhibition. Participants will use similar bisque molds to create their own planter form during the session. An overview of the spectacular glazes used on the Jun ware vessels will be discussed as well as modern attempts to re-create them.

The event will be held in the Materials Lab, Lower Level.

$15 materials fee. Registration is required and payment must be made in advance. Please email am_visitorservices@harvard.edu or stop by the museums’ admissions desk to register. Space is limited to 15 participants. Minimum age of 14.

The program is funded in part by the Gregory and Maria Henderson Fund and by generous support from Terry and William Carey.