Painted Pottery Altar Table With Food and Wine Offerings From the Ming Dynasty - 8 Piece Set

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The green glazed altar table is a scaled down model with recessed legs and simple spandrels supporting a top piled … Read more The green glazed altar table is a scaled down model with recessed legs and simple spandrels supporting a top piled high with plated delicacies, a chickem, a whole fish, pastries, cakes made from a cake mould, and assosrted pastries.Some of the foodstuff are not identifiable, but the whole chicken and fish are still considered delicacies today. The evidence of antiquity can be seen on the green glaze, a common glaze on Ming Dynasty artifacts. Through the years of burial, some of the green have altered and created a silverish patina.

This presentation of ritual food offerings is a part of tomb furnishings that would be placed in a burial of the Ming Dynasty CE 1368 – 1644. The complete set could compose of more than 100 pieces that included attendants, both male and female, soldiers and musicians on horseback, home furnishings such as cabinets, beds, tables and chairs, and the most important would be the spirit chair carried by four attendants. Most of these were excavated in Shanxi Province in North Central China.

Fine examples of complete processions are in the collection of the Shanghai Museum of Art and also at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Ming Dynasty CE 1368 – 1644
Table: 10 inches wide x 6.25 oinches deep and 6.75 inches high
Total height with assorted food pieces 9.75 inches high See less