Chinese Ceramic Pillow History

Seemingly straightforward in function this type of object has been easily overlooked by art and design historians.

Chinese ceramic pillow history.

They believed that the materials of which the pillow was made could have health benefits for the person using it. Requiring extreme skill to produce the ceramic pillows from the tang 618 907 ad and song 960 1279 ad dynasties in particular are highly prized for. Among all ancient chinese pillows the porcelain pillow was the most widely used. Porcelain pillows were mass produced in china in their millions in the 1800s and exported to expat asian communities all over the world.

Chinese ceramics show a continuous development since pre dynastic times and are one of the most significant forms of chinese art and ceramics globally. Over many chinese dynasties pillows were made from a wide range of materials including bamboo jade porcelain wood and bronze. Japanese and chinese porcelain marks chinese pottery and porcelain chinese imari export porcelain chinese porcelain chinese famille rose famille verte and rose medallion porcelain and an active collector forum. The use of the ceramic pillow first appeared in the sui dynasty between 581 and 618 while mass production appeared in the tang.

Email ask a question service. Chinese ceramic pillows are certainly very different in form to their western equivalents. If i could buy one i d use it. Chinese pillows were traditionally solid though sometimes used with a softer fabric over them.

Although breakable the hard material used to make them would last forever and the cool touch of porcelain would ve been refreshing in the hot muggy climates of southeast asia where many of these pillows ended up. Ceramic pillows became the most popular. This painting is from the qing dynasty and depicts an old chinese man holding a soft pillow ready to drift off to a pleasant and dreamy sleep. In the winter we sleep on two hunks of wood 肖楠 taiwan incense cedar superb wood.

Expert help and more than 2 500 pages with free information for collectors of antique chinese and japanese porcelain. In the summer my wife and i use bamboo pillows which are really nice because they let in the breeze. The first pottery was made during the palaeolithic era. While ceramic pillows were widely used in the song dynasty from the qing dynasty 1644 ad 1911ad they were used less.

This essay analyses the social value and multiple functions of ceramic pillows in ming dynasty china in relation to a pillow in the v a collections. Chinese ceramics range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles to hand built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns to the sophisticated chinese porcelain wares made for.