Exhibition of ancient Bat Trang pottery

The entire seven centuries of the Bat Trang pottery village's craft (14th - 20th centuries) are encapsulated in the thematic exhibition "Ancient Bat Trang Pottery" at the National Museum of History in Hanoi from May 18th to September 30th. "The Bat Trang pottery village produces many precious ceramic items with unique characteristics, which have been favored over the centuries from villages to royal courts, from folk religious artifacts to diplomatic tributes," said Dr. Nguyen Viet Doan, Director of the National Museum of History in Hanoi.

A pair of candlesticks with brown floral underglaze, 14th century.

The ceramic works were also selected according to the different periods of the village's development. The 14th century was a prosperous period for Bat Trang ceramics thanks to open trade and commerce policies. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Bat Trang became a specialized production center with high-tech and artistic products, sold both domestically and exported. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Bat Trang ceramics still had a significant domestic market with household items, religious artifacts, decorative items, and building bricks… "The exhibition also shows that Bat Trang is a living museum of Vietnamese ceramic history," Mr. Doan said.

The 14th-century ceramics selected for exhibition include brown-glazed jars with embossed dragon motifs, brown glaze, and subtle indigo-dye patterns, as well as blue-glazed plates. This selection was made because this was the period when Bat Trang primarily produced white, jade-glazed, and brown-glazed ceramic bowls, plates, and vases; brown-glazed ceramic jars, basins, and candlesticks; and "pre-blue glaze" ceramic bowls, plates, and jars. "Pre-blue glaze" ceramics are a type of pottery that uses a brush to apply blue color under a glossy white glaze; the patterns are mainly lines and flowers, drawn very crudely and faintly. This type of pottery quickly reached a high level of excellence in the 15th century…

A model of a house with ivory white, moss green, and brown glaze, 17th century.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, Bat Trang also had to adapt to the upper class's preference for Chinese ceramics. Accordingly, Bat Trang pottery from this period, in addition to traditional themes, also featured imported themes based on Chinese stories such as "The Fisherman's Catch," "Su Wu Herding Goats," "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," and "The Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea"... The exhibited artifacts include a pair of cracked glaze ceramic basin bases with blue painted designs, depicting the Dragon-Horse and River Diagram/Divine Turtle and Luo Shu; and cracked glaze ceramic jars with blue painted designs, depicting landscapes...

Source link: https://thanhnien.vn/trung-bay-gom-co-bat-trang-185230518020912653.htm