This massive vessel is cylindrical in shape with a flat base, hoisted on three bear-shaped feet and covered with a low dome-shape lid with an intact, loose ring handle attached to a loop at the center of the lid. The fabric is a very dark grey, dense earthenware potted somewhat thinly for such a large vessel. Two grooves above the base and another pair beneath the lip circle the vessel along with a pair circling the lid enclosing a scalloped line made up of contiguous arcs. Three well-modelled squatting bears support the vessel on their shoulders, each with its forepaws on its knees for support, the faces well details. Scattered markings in some areas on the walls of the vessel appear as if grasses adhered to the walls of the ceramic, eventually drying, and leaving a distinctive pattern behind.
This shape, known as a lian, was popular during the Han period in all media, the less costly earthenwares mimicking the bronze and lacquer containers made for the elite. The ceramics could be painted with designs mimicking the décor of their models, as exemplified by another earthenware lian in the Kaikodo inventory with painted motifs and also illustrated here representing a likely model, a lacquer lian decorated with gold and silver applique also from the Kaikodo collection (figs. 1-2).
An earthenware lian somewhat smaller than the present but otherwise in form almost identical in the Minneapolis Institute of Art (fig. 3) still retains a good portion of the white slip that once provided the ground for designs painted in colorful pigments. Our lian might have been similarly decorated although there is not trace of pigment on its surface. Perhaps the decision was to leave it as the splendid, brooding, powerful unadorned presence that it remains in today.
1.For a discussion of the bear in Chinese art, see Kaikodo Journal XXXIX (Spring 2023) no.6 at https://www.kaikodo.com/art/a-pair-of-bronze-bear-form-finials%e7%86%8a%e5%bd%a2%e9%8a%85%e9%a3%be%e4%b8%80%e5%b0%8d/
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Fig. 1: Painted earthenware lian, Eastern Han, Kaikodo.
Fig. 2: Lacaquer lian, Western Han, Kaikodo.
Fig. 3: Grey earthenware lian with remnants of slip painted décor, Eastern Han, Minneapolis Institute of Art, after https://www.google.com/search?q=minneapolis+museum+of+art+black+earthenware+covered+Han+dynasty+lian&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS1144U
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