This object is a blue-and-white bowl adorned with a diaper pattern of hexagonal tortoise-shell motifs and floral designs.
In terms of morphology, the bowl features an everted rim, slanting walls, and a circular footring. The transparent glaze is tinged with a subtle greenish-yellow hue, displaying a dense network of fine crackles across its surface. This exemplifies the typical tactile profile of Annamese blue-and-white glaze and clay bodies from the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries AD, a characteristic stemming from the traditional Vietnamese practice of incorporating wood ash as a flux into the glaze mixture. The exterior wall is decorated with a hexagonal tortoise-shell motif, alternative termed the coin pattern due to its resemblance to overlapping old cash coins with central holes; such continuous, repetitive geometric patterns are designated as diaper grounds (jin-di). These hexagonal cells are interspersed with small florets, while the area adjacent to the foot is painted with simplified lotus-petal panels. The interior wall features scrolls of grass and floral designs executed in dots and lines, while the center of the bowl is painted with a simplified cross motif flanked by double phoenixes. Among these, the cross motif, the hexagonal tortoise-shell diaper, and the floral patterns all constitute decorative designs frequently observed during the Ming Dynasty AD.
Although the ornamentation of this vessel inherits the diaper grounds, vine-scrolls, cross motifs, and lotus petals characteristic of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain, its brushwork is comparatively coarse and loose. The edges of the blue-and-white motifs exhibit slight bleeding or blurred borders. This effect occurs because the cobalt pigment was partially absorbed by the clay body, causing the edges to gently diffuse—a visual quality known as shibori-de (絞手) within the aesthetic framework of Japanese tea utensils. The coloration is relatively pale, with some brushstrokes even bordering on greyish-blue, suggesting the possible use of cobalt pigments imported from Yunnan, China. Vietnamese blue-and-white wares display varied treatments of the base, including an iron-brown wash, an unglazed surface, or a coating of transparent glaze; the footring of the present piece reveals an unglazed contact surface with faint traces of reddish iron spots (flint red), while the interior base within the footring remains unglazed.
Multiple pinholes or crawling defects are visible on the exterior of the vessel body, likely induced by the uneven internal stress within the glaze layer. On the interior, an instance of smoke-staining (chuan-yan) can be observed, manifesting as dark spots caused by poor thermal convection within the kiln.
From the mid-fourteenth to the early fifteenth century AD, kilns in northern Vietnam—notably those around Thăng Long and the early Bat Trang area—demonstrated remarkable dynamism amid the rising tide of maritime export trade, extending the reach of their glazed ceramics to the western gateways of Japan. During this period, Vietnamese ceramic craftsmanship was undergoing a transitional phase from traditional wares to mature blue-and-white production, with the output consisting predominantly of large dishes and bowls manufactured to meet the demand for daily utilitarian tableware overseas. Regarding technical execution, Vietnamese potters extensively utilized local iron-rich pigments to sketch sparse, fluid, and refined chrysanthemum spray motifs in the center of the vessel’s interior base, while the interior and exterior rims were encircled by continuous scrolling vines. A selection of premium-grade wares began to assimilate the decorative compositions of late Yuan Dynasty AD blue-and-white porcelain from China, experimenting with the introduction of cobalt pigments for painted decoration and employing iron-brown lines to delineate the boundaries of the motifs. Constrained by contemporary clay levigation techniques and kiln firing temperatures, and to prevent the stoneware clay body from sagging or warping under intense kiln heat, Vietnamese potters devised a unique micro-morphological adaptation by making the footrings wide and low. This structural attribute became the most recognizable localized hallmark of Vietnamese export ceramics during this era.
Following the successful expulsion of the Ming military forces and the reclamation of national independence by Vietnam in AD 1427, the domestic ceramic industry entered a century-long golden age under the patronage and promotion of the Lê Dynasty AD. During this epoch, the ceramic industry centered around the Chu Đậu and Bat Trang kilns in the Red River Delta experienced unprecedented prosperity. This era not only produced pinnacle masterpieces such as the celebrated blue-and-white vase now housed in Turkey, which bears a inscription dating it to the eighth year of the Đại Hòa era (AD 1450), but also propelled a vast volume of commodities into the insular Southeast Asian market, successfully filling the commercial vacuum left by the shifting maritime policies of China. Concurrently, however, direct exports from Vietnamese kilns to the more distant main islands of Japan reached a state of near-stagnation; their products entered the gusuku fortresses of the Ryukyu Kingdom primarily through the international entrepôt trade networks of Ryukyu, maintaining an aura of extreme rarity. Throughout this phase of production, Vietnamese potters demonstrated superlative command over complex, composite decorative techniques, including molding, underglaze blue painting, and overglaze enamel (red and green palette) applications. Whether manufacturing octagonal pear-shaped bottles or intricate double-line lotus-petal dishes, they exhibited a technical confidence capable of rivaling Jingdezhen in China. Meanwhile, the unique “iron wash” technique indigenous to Vietnam—the application of a layer of iron-rich slip inside the footring to prevent adhesion during firing—became an institutionalized standard for export commodities.
By the mid-sixteenth century AD, the stringent enforcement of maritime prohibitions by the Ming Dynasty AD generated an urgent demand in international markets for Southeast Asian resources and raw silk. Leveraging its abundant raw silk output and highly developed ceramic industries, northern Vietnam once again emerged as a crucial nexus of international maritime commerce. To cater to Japanese merchants who began sailing directly to Giao Chỉ aboard Shuinsen (Red Seal ships) after the 1590s AD, the kilns of northern Vietnam embarked on large-scale, customized, and market-directed production. The most renowned vessels of this period—the cylindrical tea bowls termed tombo-de (dragonfly wares) or shibori-de (絞手) by Japanese tea masters—were precisely the products of Vietnamese potters deliberately adapting their craft to suit the rustic aesthetics of overseas grass-hut tea ceremonies (wabi-cha). Vietnamese kilns applied their distinctive high-calcium ash glaze over a layer of white slip, leaving three spur marks on the interior base resulting from stack-firing techniques. To satisfy the Japanese tea masters’ preference for irregularity and asymmetrical imperfection, potters broke away from conventional wheel-throwing standards, intentionally compressing the body of the bowl by hand to create a distorted, oval cross-section. In terms of ornamentation, Vietnamese painters completely abandoned the dense, scrolling vine patterns standard to their domestic repertoire, opting instead for minimalist, isolated strokes executed with dark local cobalt that easily bled into the soft glaze. They sketched dragonflies, prawns, birds, and bamboo grasses, generating a natural, diffused shibori effect reminiscent of indigo-dyed textiles.
However, this customized prosperity, which relied heavily on specific overseas markets, encountered a cataclysmic historical turning point between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries AD. With the complete maturation of the private kiln system at Jingdezhen during the late Ming Dynasty AD—particularly the geometric explosion in the output of export porcelains like Kraak ware and Ko-sometsuke (old blue-and-white) tailored specifically for the Japanese market—Chinese porcelain, characterized by a whiter body, perfectly vitrified glaze, and highly competitive pricing, swept across the globe like a tidal wave. Confronted by the overwhelming combination of massive volume and technical superiority from Jingdezhen, the commercial viability of Vietnamese ceramics was ruthlessly squeezed out, both within its traditional strongholds in Southeast Asia and within the specialized tea utensil markets of Japan. This international chain reaction, triggered by the comprehensive resurgence of production capacity and technical innovation at Jingdezhen, directly caused the irreversible decline of Vietnamese export ceramics from the late sixteenth century AD onwards. By the mid-seventeenth century AD, the implementation of national seclusion policies (sakoku) by the Japanese government completely severed the Shuinsen trade routes. This formal closure brought an end to decades of specialized, market-directed production by the Red River Delta kilns, and Vietnamese ceramics gradually retreated from the mainstream global export arena, reverting to a domestic industry primarily serving local and monastic religious needs.
Stevenson, John, and John Guy. Vietnamese Ceramics: A Separate Tradition. Chicago, Art Media Resources with Avery Press, 1997.
Richards, Dick. South-East Asian Ceramics: Thai, Vietnamese, and Khmer: From the Collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia. Selangor, Oxford University Press, 1995.
Kikuchi, Yuriko. A History of Maritime Trade in Northern Vietnam, 12th to 18th Centuries: Archaeological Investigations in Vandon and Phohien. Singapore, Springer Nature Singapore, 2021.
