Vietnam ceramics: A Complete Guide to Vietnamese Ceramics

High-fired ceramics were already being produced in Vietnam by 2,000 years; the white-glazed white-bodied ceramics unearthed from the Thanh-hoa tomb predate any pottery found in China to date.

The Vietnamese became aware of the vitrification process in the 1st century AD, as Chinese artisans followed Chinese soldiers and administrators to establish new settlements in the area of ​​modern Hanoi. However, Vietnamese goods are very similar to Chinese forms.

After the fall of the Han Dynasty in the early 3rd century CE, Vietnam’s early pottery tradition seems to have come to an end. A revival occurred during the Li Dynasty (1009-1225) and received a major boost when the Ming Dynasty severely restricted exports in the late 14th century.

All references are from works listed in the bibliography at the end of this article.

Bat Trang

The Bat Trang Kiln is located about 10 kilometers southeast of Hanoi. The name first appeared in 1352. The first mention of pottery production here dates back to 1435. The site is still active today.

One legend is that it was founded by the Chu Dau people, while local lore holds that three Vietnamese scholars who went to China on a diplomatic mission during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1126) established the might of the Bat Trang Kiln. They are said to have visited a ceramics factory in Guangdong and brought back the technical knowledge that led the people of Bat Trang to learn how to make glazes: a scholar’s white glaze; a second scholar, red glaze; a third scholar, dark yellow glaze; Everyone goes to a different region [Phan Huy Lê, Nguyen Chién & Nguyen Quang Ngoc 1995: 48]. Other evidence points to Thanh Hoa as the ancestor of the Bat Trang industry [Miksic 2009:60].

According to Long [1995:87], Bat-Trang pottery was sent to China as a tribute in the 15th century.

Due to “the internal homogeneity of the utensils and the scarcity of archaeological data” [Brown 1988: 27], there is no chronology of Vietnamese utensils from the 14th to the 17th centuries.

Production of Bat Trang wares likely peaked in the 15th and 16th centuries, coinciding with the Ming Gorge, when exports of Chinese goods were banned. However, modern kilns there have been in continuous operation since at least the 16th century [Brown 1988:32].

Vietnamese pottery of this period is known for its blue and white porcelain. The origin of this method of decoration is uncertain, but it likely coincided with the Ming invasion of North Vietnam in 1407. Brown [1988: 25] tells us that “underglaze iron blacks and solid colors began to disappear rapidly as cobalt was used in underglaze painted decoration”, as well as earlier decorative patterns and forms.

In terms of decoration, there are not only blue and white, but also red and green overglazes, and sometimes yellow.

The designs (top left) can be found in different combinations on large plates and small glasses; these designs (bottom left) often appear as central medallions on large plates.

The new assortment is huge: Bottles, Glasses, Bowls, Plates, Bowls, Jars with Lids, Kendi, Jarlets, Zoomorphic Waterdrops and Miniatures. An example is shown below.

Bat Trang was also famous for making incense burners (pictured left) in the 16th and 17th centuries. The mass production of these incense burners is a good testament to the revival of Buddhism during this period [Miksic 2009: 61].

Finally, the potters at Bat Trang consisted of men and women, sometimes husbands and wives. This shows the tradition of potters signing some of their pieces, as at Chu Dau.

Chu Dau

Chu Dau was discovered in 1983 in the Nam Sach district east of Hanoi, where a series of excavations took place between 1986 and 1991. Production is estimated to have begun in the 13th century, peaked in the 15th century, and declined in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Chu Dau is mentioned in the famous vase (left), signed by a lady named Bui, dated 1450, and housed in the Topkapi Sarayi Museum in Istanbul.

In the late 16th century, another potter, this time a man named Dang Huyen Thong, signed at least ten of his works, including incense burners and candlesticks. He is unusual in that he is both a BA and a potter. His home was only two kilometers from Bamboo Island (Tang 1993: 34).

Zhu Dao Kiln produced a wide variety of shapes and decorations. These included oddities such as goblets, beauty bottles, lime jars, double gourd jugs with elaborate handles and spouts, and jars with lids, although the vast majority of products were bowls, many with chocolate wrappers on the bottom. Decoration includes celadon glaze, cobalt blue design, overglaze, and brown glazed bowl with carved motifs.

Unfortunately, there is not much left of the oven itself. However, much furnace furniture and many saggers have survived. A ring bracket with three spurs was also found.

Go-Sanh

Go-Sanh, literally “Potter’s Mountain”, is located in Binh Dinh Province in central Vietnam. Before modern times, it was the empire of the Chams, a Malay-Polynesian-speaking group who founded many important kingdoms and were a fearsome place for the Khmer and Vietnamese before their gradual conquest in the 15th century. enemy.

Go-Sanh pottery is divided into three groups: The first group (1) consists of saucers with green or blue-gray glazes, with unglazed stacked rings on the inner bottom, as shown in the first example below. The grayish tone of the unglazed interior, which occurs on both such vessels and the celadon, also helps to identify this work as belonging to the kiln site.

A celadon bowl belonging to the second category (2), similar in tone to the above, can be seen on the unglazed base of this cup-shaped bowl. The celadon glaze has eroded over time, but some color can still be seen from the glaze build-up on the uneven surface. The final third (3) consists of brown glazed vessels of various shapes, often with an orange to reddish brown hue. This shade is surprisingly light and can be seen in the unglazed lower half of the Binh Dinh jarlet pictured below.

Thanh Hoa

From the Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty (111-979 AD), North Vietnam was conquered by the Chinese, who ruled as far as Thanh Hoa (about 150 km south of Hanoi). 1407-1427 is the second period of Chinese rule.

Thanh Hoa was excavated in the 1920-30s due to public works in France. Funeral objects dating from the 1st to 3rd centuries and the 10th to 13th centuries were found, roughly contemporaneous with the Han and Song Dynasties in late China. These are known as Thanh Hoa vessels and are considered uniquely Vietnamese rather than Chinese. The first exhibition of these handicrafts was held at the Musée Guimet in Paris in 1931.

Beginning in 1925, the area was heavily looted, prompting the authorities to enact laws against illegal excavations. Unfortunately, this hasn’t stopped amateur collectors from building large collections. Poor recordkeeping for everyone—prospectors, looters, and collectors—is also an ongoing problem.

In the early stages of excavations, no kiln sites for glazed porcelain were found, only 20 crusader kilns (the source of unglazed, reddish, high-fired porcelain). There is no kiln with paste body or greenish glaze white body in Han Dynasty.

Thanh Hoa ware, found at these burial sites, is divided into two groups:

• (1) The first, according to Roxanna Brown [1988: 17], is classified as the “Later Han period”, ranging from the 1st to the 3rd century AD, and is “vessels of white lumps and milky white to greenish glaze”” ’ Miksic [2009: 58] tells us that Bat-trang, then 10 km north of Hanoi, was the only known mid-16th century kiln site in North Vietnam. However, it is known that high-fired ceramics were produced in Vietnam 2,000 years ago. The white-glazed and white-bodied pottery unearthed from Qinghua Tomb was earlier than any pottery known in China at that time.
  • Han Dynasty pottery was made of reddish-brown or pale yellow clay and painted with a matte green glaze. However, the shapes are very similar to those in China. “

• (2) The second period is what Brown refers to as the “Lee dynasty”, roughly corresponding to their reign 1009-1225, ie 10th-13th centuries. This is a moment of great pride for the Vietnamese, successfully breaking away from Chinese authority. Many also see this as an artistic renaissance when trade resumed. Between the first and second periods is the intermediate period from the 4th century to the 10th century, but few finds can be definitively attributed to this period.
  • The utensils of the Li Dynasty are mainly covered urns, mostly unglazed, dark gray, white to gray utensils. The latter is available in the following glaze types: iron brown inlay, light green ochre, white, black and brown monochrome. There are also two types of celadon: thin, light, and translucent; the other is thick and dark. Finally, there are vessels decorated with underglaze black [Brown 1988: 17].
  • Decorative inlays are found in the earliest Li Dynasty vessels. These forms are limited to “covered urns, some with hollow feet”, such as the example (top right), which may have lost its cover. Other forms, Brown tells us, “include tall cylindrical cylinders, wide basins, and low jars with flared rims. [These] ornaments are carved with broad scratches in outline, and the interior space is glazed in brown. Then the rest of the vessel Apply a glaze that is usually liquid, clear, or greenish in color. In some rare instances, this color scheme is reversed… Occasionally a thin layer of white glaze is visible under the glaze. The bottom is always unglazed and Mostly flat, the sherds are white or light gray in color. The decorative designs are mostly vegetal, with tendrils and simple flowers, often lotuses, predominating” [Brown 1988:20-21].

Finally, Brown [1988:22] tells us: “Among later discoveries in Thanh Hoa, from the 12th to the 13th centuries, there are two types of celadon, both of which are found in earlier trade goods… a This type is usually found on heavy basins, medium sized, relatively simple bowls with rolled rims and carved foot rings. It is thick, opaque, cloudy, dark olive green, and usually rests on white underpants , the underpants can also be thick. Many of these pieces have “chocolate” (underlying brown) bases, and most have spore marks or unglazed stacked rings inside. This species is only occasionally attractive medium green.”

Bibliography and Recommended Reading

• Brown, Roxanna M., The Ceramics of South-East Asia: Their Dating and Identification, 2nd edn. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988.

• Bui Minh Tri and Kerry Nguyen-Long, Góm Hoa Lam, Viet Nam: Vietnamese Blue & White Ceramics, Hanoi, Vietnam: Social Sciences Publishing House, 2001.

• Nguyen Dinh Chien and Pham Quoc Quan, Vietnamese Brown Patterned Ceramics, Hanoi: 2005.

• Frasche, D. Southeast Asian Ceramics: Ninth through Seventeenth Centuries, 1976.
• Gotuaco, Tan and Diem, Chinese and Vietnamese Blue and White Wares found in the Philippines, 1997.
• Lammers, C. and Ridho, A. Annamese Ceramics in the Museum Pusat Jakarta, 1974.
• Miksic, John N. (ed.) Southeast Asian Ceramics: New Light on Old Pottery, Singapore, Southeast Asian Ceramic Society, 2009.
• Okuda Sei-ichi, Annam Tōji Zenshū, Tokyo: Zauho Press, 1954.
• Rehfuss, D. “Report on the Third Asian Ceramic Conference” in Orientations, Vol. 30, No. 4 (May 1999).
• Richards, Dick, South-East Asian Ceramics: Thai, Vietnamese, and Khmer from the Collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Rooney, Dawn F. Ceramics of Seduction: Glazed Wares from Southeast Asia, Bangkok: River Books, 2013.
• Stevenson, John and John Guy, Vietnamese Ceramics: A Separate Tradition, Chicago: Avery Press, 1997.
• White, Margaret. “The Kendi: The Long Journey of a Little Water Vessel”, PASSAGE, May/June 2018, pp. 24-25. Read or download it here.
• Willetts, William. Ceramic Art of Southeast Asia, Singapore: SEACS, 1971, pp. 9-14, quoted extensively by C. Nelson Spinks in his article in the Siam Society Journal article “A Reassessment of the Annamese Wares”, (1976) that can be downloaded here.
• Young, Carol, Marie-France Dupoizat and Elizabeth W. Lane (eds.), Vietnamese Ceramics, Singapore: Southeast Asian Ceramic Society, 1982.

Websites

• www.washingtonocg.org (Washington Oriental Ceramic Group)
• https://asia.si.edu (Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art)
• https://museum.bu.ac.th/en/newsletter/ (Southeast Asian Ceramics Museum newsletters, early ones edited by R. Brown)