Pure Tea and Complexity: Poetic Inscriptions on Qianlong Imperial Teabowls, ca. 1740-1770

• In Event: 165. Global Tea Initiatives: Horticultural Practice and Gastronomical Perspectives in Tea History. Sponsored by UC Davis Global Tea Initiative

Abstract

In early 1746, the Qianlong emperor composed an unremarkable poem about a favorite beverage, the Thrice Purity Tea (Sanqing cha). One of his estimated 40,000 poems, the rhyme describes the experience of brewing and imbibing an aromatic infusion of citron, plum blossom, and pine nut from a Yue-ware celadon bowl. After completing the composition, the emperor ordered a court official to inscribe the poetic text onto exteriors of tea bowls multiple times over a period spanning forty years. Oddly, extant tea bowls bearing the 1746 poem always appear in materials other than celadons, including blue-and-white porcelain, enamel, Khotan jade, or carved lacquer, amongst others. This paper explores the history of such imperial tea bowls and their decorative text. The paper begins by situating these bowls as imperial objects functioning in annual tea banquets held enthusiastically by Qing emperors and Qianlong in particular. Second, I consider the bowls and their poetic content within imperial China’s tradition of inscribed vessels, distinguishing between textualized surfaces and incised substrates in their various forms. By analyzing physical modes of inscription and the poem’s horticultural content as recipes mapping a distinct imperial landscape, I demonstrate ways in which court artists employed concepts of material design to make legible the emperor’s body through gastronomical taste. As an analysis of their of production, use, and distribution show, Qing-imperially inscribed tea bowls were more than state tableware, but objects of efficacy that inscribe and incorporate a Qing imperial order in their every formal occasion.

Author

• Ellen C. Huang, University of California, Berkeley