Garden Seat

This barrel-shaped stool is embellished with an appliqué floral and tendril pattern in keeping with Sung (960-1279) and Yuan (1280-1368) taste. It is unusual to find ceramic garden seats dating to this early period, but a thermoluminescence test confirms a date of about 1250 for this rare object, making it one of the earliest ceramic stools known. Gardens with large decorative rocks became popular during Sung and outdoor seating made of stone in stone or glazed ceramics were often used in such settings. The Chinese genius for ceramics is expressed here in a lovely, yet functional, weather resistant object that would have been relatively inexpensive to produce.