Beauty’s Enchantment, Seventeenth-century Jingdezhen Porcelain from the Shanghai Museum and the Butler Collection, by Sir Michael Butler and Prof. Wang Qingzheng.
This book is a catalog from a joint exhibition between the Shanghai Museum and the Butler Collection, covering the period from 1621 to the Mid Kangxi period. The section introductions and captions take their basis in the historical events of the time and explains how this is reflected in the porcelain pieces discussed. The text as well as the illustrations are first class. If you look for one book only covering the Ming-Qing Transitional period, this volume would be my personal choice. It’s really outstanding.
Another highly appreciated feature is that whenever possible, the bases and any present marks are illustrated in full color. All entries in the catalog are also individually signed by the authors.
If you can find a hardbound version it would definitely be worth it. My copy is paperback but given a choice, the quality of the content definitely motivates a better binding.
Paperback: 360 pages
Publisher: Scala Publishers Ltd (March 15, 2006)
ISBN-10: 1857594177
ISBN-13: 978-1857594171
Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 9.1 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 4.5 pounds
Sheaf, Colin & Kilburn, Richard, The Hatcher Porcelain Cargoes. The Complete Record.
Overview and general presentation of the two first of Michael Hatchers porcelain cargoes, the Ming junk cargo (c. 1643-1646) from a seventeenth century Chinese junk, and the Dutch East Indiaman Geldermalsen that foundered in 1752.
I think this is a good reference for the Hatcher cargoes, in particular the 1640’s junk. This book and the actual auction catalogs covers it very well. I would not call this book indispensable but the color pictures of the 1640s junk cargo are good and considering the precise dating of the pieces this is a valuable reference.
192 pages
212 illustrations of which 138 in color
Phaidon/Christies, 1988.
ISBN. 0 7148 8046 9
Chinese Porcelains of the Seventeenth Century: Landscapes, Scholars’ Motifs and Narratives
Catalog of an exhibition at China Institute Gallery, New York, it describes porcelains made at Jingdezhen between 1630 and 1700, focusing on the motifs of landscapes, scholar’s pursuits and the influence of Chinese landscape painting on the decoration of ceramics.
Paperback: 168 pages
Publisher: China Institute in America, New York 1995.
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0295974672
ISBN-13: 978-0295974675
Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.8 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
Chinese Ceramics of the Transitional Period: 1620-1683, by Stephen Little
(New York, 1983)
Exhibition catalog. One of the earlier books that specifically tried to deal with the Ming / Qing Transitional period. Quite interesting and with some good explanations of porcelain motifs of the period and quite some attention spent on explaining the last decades of the Ming dynasty. Recommend as good and interesting. A bit too thin though, to be enough to cover this period.
JE
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