Heaven and Earth Seen Within: Song Ceramics from the Robert Barron Collection

The Song Dynasty (960--1279) produced some of the most exquisite ceramics of the Chinese potter's art. The examples included in this catalog of an exhibition arranged by the New Orleans Museum of Art are from the collection of Robert Barron, a New Orleans physician who devoted more than forty years to acquiring these stunning works. The objets d'art represented here reflect the entire tradition of Song ceramics with cup stands, bowls, bottles, a pillow, boxes, pots, jars, dishes, water pots, saucers, and vases. The sixty-five elegant pieces include both stoneware and porcelains. The stone-ware glazes range from ivory to pale blue-green to robin's-egg blue, the porcelains from white to bluish-green to dark. The introductory essay discusses shapes and designs and delineates differences in Yue Ware, Ding Ware, Yaozhon Ware, Jun Ware, Cizhon Ware, Qingbai Ware, and Lonquon Ware. It locates the kilns where Song ceramics were made and provides a clear overview of the history and heritage of each type. Connoisseurs and collectors long have considered works of the Song Dynasty to be the sublime expression of Chinese ceramics. As this beautiful book reveals, these works provide the opportunity to see, as did a ninth-century Chinese poet, "heaven and earth" within a pot. In the year 2000 and through the spring of 2001 this exhibition traveled from New Orleans to Lexington, Kentucky (Headley-Whitney Museum), Cincinnati, Ohio (The Taft Museum), and Madison, Wisconsin (Elvehjem Museum, University of Wisconsin). Lisa Rotondo-McCord is curator of Asian art at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Dr. Robert Mowry, a noted expert in Song ceramics, is the curator of Chinese art for the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University.