Love Story in a Porcelain Box | The Art Institute of Chicago (original) (raw)
This tiny porcelain box appears unassuming from the outside.
By Sizhao Yi
Decorated with rather generic geometric, floral, and landscape motifs in sancai, the“three-colored” enamel typical of the Kangxi era (1662–1722), this box went easily unnoticed as I looked at the museum’s collection of Chinese vases and figurines, many with flashier designs.
China
The box is divided into two compartments and has a sliding lid, a form that resembles stationery boxes from this period. Such small containers were often used to hold ink and pigments for writing and painting. Nestled in these two compartments, however, are two miniature figural scenes. One depicts a figure curled up in bed within a room meticulously filled with details of daily life.
China
The other scene, in contrast, lacks any indication of the surrounding environment. Instead, it spotlights three figures making dramatic gestures and interacting with one another.
The scenes might be based on two plots from Romance of the Western Chamber, one of the most renowned romantic plays in Chinese history. Written by the Yuan-dynasty playwright Wang Shifu (1250–1337?), the play narrates the love story between an impoverished young scholar Zhang Sheng and Cui Yingying, the daughter of a government official. In the story, Zhang becomes lovesick for Yingying. After Yingying sends her maid, Crimson, to check on Zhang and deliver a message, the lovers are reunited and consummate their love, while Crimson stands by outside, overhearing and blushing.
Scenes from the opera
In the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Romance of the Western Chamber and its various adaptations were frequently performed on stage. The scripts of these works were widely circulated, reprinted, and modified for reading. Their plots were also illustrated in woodblock prints, paintings, and on all kinds of decorative objects.
Objects featuring the storied young lovers
While it is not unusual for a porcelain object to feature scenes from popular narratives, this little box containing detailed, three-dimensional miniatures remains a singular case to my knowledge. The craftsman skillfully and creatively created a unique object that intrigues its beholders by initiating a playful process of suspense, imagination, and revelation. For anyone encountering the box, the most special and exciting moment undoubtedly occurs when they slide open the lid to discover the intricate scenes of drama inside. This surprising discovery is further underscored by the box’s material and structure. The porcelain produces a soft, reverberating sound as the lid rubs against the sides while being removed. This sound compels its beholder to handle the box gently and carefully.
This necessarily slow uncovering process means that the images inside can only be revealed gradually, one at a time. The intimate bedroom scene, when viewed on its own, does not clearly point to a specific story and thus creates a moment of ambiguity. It might lead the viewer to mistake the box for an erotic object, promising more explicit images to come, for objects featuring erotic images were popular both within and beyond the Qing domestic market. In this way, the box sets up a tongue-in-cheek moment of suspension for its beholders, intensifying the urge to look.
The process of slowly opening the box and discovering its hidden contents in sequence almost mirrors the process of reading (Chinese is read vertically after all). This is particularly fitting for a text like Romance of the Western Chamber, famously characterized by its intriguing suspense and many layers of hidden meanings.
Yet you don’t need to understand the box’s literary reference in order to enjoy its multi-sensorial appeal for the eyes, hands, and ears. The box playfully invites all viewers—Qing connoisseurs, Western collectors, and us—to wonder, to touch, to imagine, to uncover, and to interpret, thus enacting and enriching the pleasure of reading without words.
—Sizhao Yi, Rhoades Foundation Curatorial Intern, Arts of Asia