Changsha Ware Ewer

Changsha Ware is a style of Chinese pottery that had a major cultural and commercial impact on the medieval world. Produced from around 750 to 900 CE in kilns near the modern city of Changsha in Hunan Province, the pottery is best known for its vibrant, painted glazes that feature floral patterns, animal motifs, abstract designs, and calligraphy. Thanks to the generosity of the Museum’s namesake, Timothy S. Y. Lam, who donated his collection in 2012, the Lam Museum is home to the largest collection of Changsha Ware outside of Asia.

This Changsha Ware ewer was used to serve wine. The vessel’s inscription remained a mystery until recent research by students in the WFU Interpreting and Translation Studies Program revealed its meaning. At first, the students only recognized a few scattered characters, but eventually a stretch of consecutive characters led to a Tang Dynasty poem titled Ode to Snow by Xu Ning. However, the students found that the text didn’t align with this known poem. Rather, it was a potentially unknown rebuttal to Xu Ning’s original, a hidden gem of Tang Dynasty poetic dialog preserved in clay.

Xu Ning’s original reads:
I have long admired the Xie clan’s gift for chanting snow;
Now I see the snow and sing wildly too.
If comparing snow to catkins is theft,
Then so be it—how can catkins rival the river of snow?

The poem carved on the ewer, by contrast, subtly mocks the original:
The Xie clan of Chen once chanted snow, their verses renowned through time.
Now, lost in this swirling white, I, too, must sing with reckless rhyme.
If willow catkins is but a stolen line, then let it drift and take its course—
How can it rival the river of snow, rushing forth with boundless force?

This ewer is on display through November 22, 2025, in the exhibit Fragments of Changsha: Medieval China in Miniature. Research for this post was conducted by Shelly Ji (MA ‘25), Lin Wang (MA ‘25), and Chris Ni (MA ‘25).