Categories
Museum Object

6. Wine Bottle

Gallery:

China

Room / Case / #

33 / 33A / 4

The new wine trade

This large stoneware flask would probably have been used in a wine shop. It is 43cms tall and 34cms wide so over a foot in each dimension. Western travellers in the 13th C noted that the Mongol Chinese enjoyed four varieties of wine – kumis (fermented mares milk), rice wine, honey wine and grape wine. The Sogdians from Central Asia, introduced the grape and wine making technology to Western China from Central Asia during the Tang Dynasty. An inscription reads: “A horse with golden stirrups treads in fragrant grasslands. A man in the jade pavilion is intoxicated in the apricot blossom skies.”

This is not as innocent as it sounds: The jade pavilion is a drinking house and apricot blossom is a name for ladies of the night.

The flask is dated 1280-1398.