Vase Depicting a Phoenixlike Bird

Arts of the Americas

1700–50

Talavera poblana
Puebla, Mexico

Chinese blue-and-white porcelain arrived in the Americas during the 1570s, when the Manila Galleons began crossing the Pacific Ocean from Mexico to the Spanish Philippines and back. Cargoes of Asian luxury goods landing at Acapulco were transshipped to Colonial Mexico City and Puebla, where they remained until shipment continued across the Atlantic Ocean to Seville. A thriving ceramic industry developed in Puebla, producing glazed earthenware imitating porcelain and freely adapting Chinese designs, often with humorous vitality. This vase of Chinese shape displays panels with phoenix-like birds framed by dot-and-leaf patterns, scrolled tendrils, and semicircular “Chinese asters” beneath a cloudlike canopy. Floral bands on the shoulder and footing of the jar similarly reflect decorations derived from blue-and-white export porcelain.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Talavera Poblana (Unknown Role)
Title: Vase Depicting a Phoenixlike Bird
Place: Puebla (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1700–1750
Medium: Tin-glazed earthenware
Dimensions: H.: 49 cm (19 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Eva Lewis in memory of her husband, Herbert Pickering Lewis
Reference Number: 1923.1445
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/10435/manifest.json

Art Institute of Chicago, The Silk Road and Beyond: Travel, Trade, and Transformation, Art Institue of Chicago Museum Studies 33, 1 (2007): 26 (ill).

Art Institute of Chicago, Mexican Majolica of the 17th to the 19th Centuries, 1967, no cat.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Silk Road and Beyond: Travel, Trade, and Transformation, Sept. 30, 2006–Apr. 22, 2007, cat.

Herbert Pickering Lewis (1876–1922), Mexico City, Mexico, from late 19th/early 20th century [correspondence and research in curatorial object file]; by descent to his widow, Eva Lewis (born Eva Hill, died c. 1964), Mexico City, Mexico, from 1922 [exported from Mexico Oct./Nov. 1923; received in Chicago Dec. 3, 1923 according to correspondence from Eva Lewis to Robert Harshe, Nov. 4, 1923, and incoming permanent receipt R1335, Dec. 3, 1923, copies in curatorial object file, Arts of the Americas]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1923.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.