* 3 Eva Stroeber ANCE G QUIET ELEGANCE THE RU YAO BRUSH WASHER IN THE COLLECTION LE OF THE PRINCESSEHOF MUSEUM, LEEUWARDEN E One of the most spectacular objects in the collection of the Princessehof Museum, Leeuwarden is a small round dish referred to by an inner circle of Princessehof colleagues as our ‘Ru pindabakje’. The small dish has a diameter of only 13 centimeters and a grey-blue glaze with a lavender tone, finely cracked. The sides of the vessel are slightly rounded and thinly potted, particularly around the rim. The base is fully glazed and has three tiny spur QUIET marks. The dish is not decorated (figs. 1 and 2). This small and modest object would therefore not look spectacular to most museum visitors. If spotted in a flea market, a maximum of 20 Euro would probably be offered to the owner; it would have no chance of being displayed in a ‘popular exhibition’, which has to attract tens of thousands of visitors, because it definitely does not look like a ‘wow object’ so much loved by museum public relations departments. So what is the story behind this modest piece, which is in fact one of the most important, rare and valuable objects in the collection; the only piece of Ru ware not only at the Princessehof, but in any museum of the Netherlands? The small dish has been published several times1 and is usually on display, but it might be of interest here to tell its story in the context of new research. Provenance The small dish was given to the museum in 1981 by Johanna Margrieta Hendriena (Joop) Coulingh (1902-1998), from Zutphen. It was part of a collection of circa 100 objects, including Chinese export ceramics, Korean, Vietnamese and Thai ceramics, donated in memory of her late husband dr. ing. H.R.A. Muller (who died around 1980). Muller had worked in the field of agricultural engineering and had been based on Java in the Dutch East Indies. While living there, he had developed a passion for ceramics; he collected Chinese export ceramics and wrote a book on Javanese terracotta from the Majapahit period in East Java (13th-15th century), the last Hindu- Buddhist culture in Javanese history.2 The small Ru dish does not actually fit into the collector’s usual taste. It seems that he acquired it while on leave in the Netherlands around 1950 from the art dealers Aalderink in Amsterdam for a rather low price. Did he know what he had acquired? Did the dealer know what he had sold to Dr. Muller? Appreciation for Ru ware in China Every culture has its specific aesthetic ‘icons’. For Chinese ceramics, it was and still is the famed Ru-ware (Ru yao in Chinese), whichDownloaded was from already Brill.com10/04/2021 highly 12:34:08AM via free access 4 Fig. 2 appreciated by Chinese collectors and connoisseurs during the Southern Side-view of the Song dynasty (1127-1279). brush washer. Ru ware was produced specifically for the imperial court at the end of the Northern Song dynasty (960-1125). The first reference to imperial Ru ware is a record by Xu Jing (1091-1153) in his Xuande fengshi Gaoli tujing (Illustrated Record of the Xuande Envoy to Koryo), from the year 1123. Xu was a diplomat and a member of a Chinese delegation to the court of the Korean Koryo-dynasty (918-1392). During the Koryo period, beautiful celadons were made by Korean potters and used by the elite at court and in Buddhist monasteries. Xu Jing compared the celadon wares of Koryo to “the new wares from Ru prefecture”. Ru wares, according to Xu Jing, had replaced Ding wares at the Chinese court.3 A more explicit record for the use of Ru ware at the Chinese court can be found in the Tanzhai biheng (Notes for the Tranquil Study) by Ye Zhi, an author from the early Southern Song period: “In this dynasty, the white wares from Dingzhou being flawed by unglazed mouth rims, the court deemed it unfit for use, and orders have been handed down for green wares to be fired at Ru prefecture”.4 Ding wares were made in kilns in the northern province of Hebei in a variety of shapes and qualities. The finest were selected for use at court. However, all these wares were fired upside down and thereforeDownloaded the rim fromoften Brill.com10/04/2021 had to be 12:34:08AM via free access 5 covered with a bronze band to disguise the unglazed edge. It was therefore rather rough to use. Ru wares, fired in saggers, were considered more ‘perfect’. It seems that Ru wares were most exclusive, being reserved for imperial use only and not for the ‘art market’ – already flourishing under the Song dynasty. In 1192, the scholar Zhou Hui remarks in his Qinghe zazhi (Literary and artistic journal): “The Ru wares fired for the imperial court are restricted and they use agate in the glaze. Only those that have been rejected are allowed to be sold, but they are difficult to obtain.”5 It is generally agreed that imperial Ru ware was only made over a very short period, during the reigns of the Zhezong (1086-1100) and Huizong (1101- 1125) emperors. Whether these emperors had any personal influence on Fig. 3 the production of ceramics is difficult to say, but in the case of the Huizong Emperor Huizong (1082-1135), Finches emperor it seems highly probable. and Bamboo (detail), The Huizong emperor was a sophisticated connoisseur, a passionate collector handscroll, ink, colour of art and himself a talented artist. He founded a famous painting academy and lacquer on silk, in the capital Bianliang, now Kaifeng. By looking at the paintings of Huizong, h. 27,9 cm., l. 45,7 cm., for instance the small studies of birds sitting on twigs, one discovers an Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, aesthetic concept closely related to the beauty of Ru ware: naturalness, inv. no. 1981.278. modesty, elegance and sophistication (fig. 3).6 Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:34:08AM via free access 6 Huizong was forced to abdicate in 1126. Over the following year, the Song lost the northern part of their glorious empire to the Jurchen nomads. The Huizong emperor himself died nine years later in captivity. The court moved to the South to establish a new capital in Hangzhou for the Southern Song dynasty. Ru ware, made in the north and already extremely rare and highly appreciated, was no longer available. It became a symbol of the lost glory of the dynasty. During the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Ru ware became mythologized and it seems that the fame of this ware was derived rather more from rumour and literary sources than from knowledge of the real thing. Some Ru vessels were still preserved in the palace storerooms. The Qing emperors Yongzheng (r. 1723-1735) and Qianlong (r. 1735-1796) revived the Ru style and the interest in Ru wares within the imperial collections. Some Ru ware vessels in the collection of the Palace Museum in Taipei bear poetic inscriptions by the Qianlong emperor.7 Appreciation for Ru ware in the West The appreciation of Ru ware in the West started with Sir Percival David (1892-1964), the great British connoisseur and collector. In 1935-36, ten examples of Ru ware lent by the Chinese government were displayed in the International Exhibition of Chinese Art at the Royal Academy in London; the Western public could see these mysterious pieces of priceless Chinese ceramics for the first time. In 1937, Sir Percival David published A commentary on Ru Ware in the Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, London.8 In this pioneering article, he recorded Chinese literary references to Ru ware and established this ware as a Northern Song imperial ceramic. Unsurprisingly, he also managed to acquire the greatest collection of Ru ware outside the Chinese Palace collections in Taipei and Beijing, which is now on display in the British Museum, London. The collection comprises fourteen pieces of Ru ware.9 I think it is no coincidence that the special beauty of Ru ware was discovered by the West only in the 20th century. Fired clay, as a non- precious material, perfectly accorded with the ideals of the Chinese literati: simplicity, modesty, naturalness. Ru ware complies with demanding criteria for perfect proportions, the structure of the glaze and tactility. In many ways, Song connoisseurs anticipated modern design movements in the West. The Discovery of the Ru kilns Ru yao can be translated as ‘Ru kilns’, but for centuries there were only literary sources for these famous wares; it was a complete mystery as to where these outstanding pieces of Ru ware were made. Somewhere in the North of China, in a district called Ruzhou, but where exactly? In all these records there was no precise information on the location of the actual kiln site. The discovery of the Ru kilns had to wait until the end of the 20th century. In 1950, a kiln site was discovered at Qingliangsi, a small place in the northern province of Henan, where 1,977 shards resembling Ru ware were unearthed. In 1986, Wang Qingsheng (1931-2006), Downloadedat that time from Brill.com10/04/2021deputy 12:34:08AM via free access 7 Fig. 4 director of the Shanghai Museum and one of the most important authorities Kiln of the Mantou-type on Chinese ceramics, was approached by a businessman called Wang at Pengcheng, Hebei Luixian. He showed him a piece of broken pottery that Wang Qingsheng province.