ROYAL TASTE: THE ART OF PRINCELY COURTS IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY CHINA

Fan Jeremy Zhang, Helga Wall-Apelt Associate Curator of Asian Art

OCT 9, 2015 – JAN 10, 2016

Museum of Art

Organized by The Ringling, Royal Taste: The Art of Princely Courts in Fifteenth-century China, an exhibition of Ming courtly treasures, will be the first of its scale in Florida. Most of the objects will be on public view in the U.S. for the first time. Along with porcelain works from The Ringling’s permanent collection, more than 140 items of pictorial, sculptural, and decorative arts from China will reveal some lesser-known aspects of the daily life, royal protocols, religious practices, and afterlife beliefs in Ming-dynasty princely courts. Royal Taste will feature a selection of recent archeological finds, including a marvelous bracelet set inlaid with gemstones and a hat top mounted with a jade carving, which showcase the staggering luxury at princely courts in fifteenth-century southern China.

Fascinated with the stunning wealth of Ming art, scholars have traditionally paid close attention to the capital Beijing, yet neglected China’s provincial areas, where princes were often granted their own fiefs to protect the central throne as “screens and fences.” These provincial courts, belonging to 51 princes and over 600 secondary princes over time, enjoyed great social and financial privileges outside the capital. Recent discoveries of treasures from royal tombs have greatly enriched our knowledge of the material culture of the early- and mid-Ming dynasty and enabled new examination of the courtly art and culture from the distinctive perspective of regional courts. One of the most luxurious burials, belonging to Prince Zhuang of Liang Principality (d. 1441), has more than 1,400 pieces of gold, silver, jewelry, and porcelain, counting a total of 16 kilograms of gold and more than 700 gemstones.

The Ming dynasty also identified the Daoist god Zhenwu as a guarding deity of the throne and dedicated tremendous resources to supporting the construction of temples and production of religious statues on the sacred Wudang Mountain, which is renowned for its tai-chi practice, an internal martial art with great health benefits. The exhibition will feature a dozen statues from Wudang Mountain to show the superior artistry of Ming sculpture under royal patronage. Some personal items and ritual objects from royal tombs will also illustrate the interest of the early Ming emperors and their princes in Tibetan Buddhist beliefs and art.

While familiar with the images of Ming blue-and-white porcelain treasured in European courts, many may not know that the Ming dynasty stretched nearly 300 years, from 1368 to 1644. In addition to its ceramics legacy, this dynasty was significant for many reasons. It overthrew the reign of the Mongol empire and developed a splendid material culture, significantly impacting pre-modern Asian history. The Ming Empire established Beijing as its new capital and started numerous largescale state projects: the Forbidden City was built as the imperial residence and the Grand Canal was restored, connecting waterways between the north and the south. It also built the Great Wall along the borders to defend against the Mongols from the north. To claim power and prestige, it sent large fleets across the Indian Ocean to reach Arabia and East Africa, before the Europeans started their own explorations of global maritime trade routes. The fifteenth century witnessed the unrivaled splendor of Chinese material culture at the dawn of European voyages of great discoveries.

This exhibition will mark the first of a series of upcoming collaborations between The Ringling and the Hubei Provincial Museum, one of the eight leading state museums in China. It will support The Ringling’s efforts to expose its audience to the richness of traditional and contemporary Asian art and promote exchanges of high-quality exhibitions and research between the U.S. and China.