Taking Shape: Ceramics in Southeast Asia November 11, 2008

'Taking Shape' presents the two basic types of ceramics produced in Southeast Asia - soft, porous earthenware and high-fired stoneware. Earthenware continues to be used to cool drinking water, cook rice and curries over a wood fire and heat water for reeling silk. Watertight stoneware jars store grains, transport goods for long-distance trade and brew the rice beer essential for hospitality and ceremonies. This exhibition also illuminates the dimensions of international trade that brought southern Chinese ceramics into mainland Southeast Asia. Glazed stoneware dishes, emblazoned with blue or brown floral designs, demonstrate how the shapes and decorations of Chinese ceramics inspired the addition of painted decorations to tableware made in kilns in Vietnam and Thailand. In turn, such ceramics competed successfully in the international trade of the 15th and 16th centuries, reaching distant markets from Japan to Turkey.