Bowl

Item number Edz1050 from the MOA: University of British Columbia.

Public

Item Records

This page shows all the information we have about this item. Both the institution that physically holds this item, and RRN members have contributed the knowledge on this page. You’re looking at the item record provided by the holding institution. If you scroll further down the page, you’ll see the information from RRN members, and can share your own knowledge too.

The RRN processes the information it receives from each institution to make it more readable and easier to search. If you’re doing in-depth research on this item, be sure to take a look at the Data Source tab to see the information exactly as it was provided by the institution.

These records are easy to share because each has a unique web address. You can copy and paste the location from your browser’s address bar into an email, word document, or chat message to share this item with others.

Data
Data Source

This information was automatically generated from data provided by MOA: University of British Columbia. It has been standardized to aid in finding and grouping information within the RRN. Accuracy and meaning should be verified from the Data Source tab.

Description

Steep-sided bowl with a raised foot ring. Decorations are in blue on a peach ground. Interior has a small spot at the centre and two rings around base of walls; exterior has flower and leaf design over a 120 degree area and then on the remaining face is an empty circle and one character.

History Of Use

Such bowls were used by individual family members to hold rice while eating. For Hakka people, they were also used in the ceremony held to install the soul of a deceased family in the tablet representing ancestors in the lineage ancestral hall. If the deceased family member was more than sixty years of age, the bowls used in this ceremony were considered to carry good fortune and were used thereafter as rice bowls for the children in the family. This bowl may have been made in the well-known kilns in Wun Yu, Tai Po, Hong Kong.

Iconographic Meaning

If such a bowl was used in the ceremony to install the soul of a deceased family member, who had died at more than sixty years of age, into the tablet in the lineage ancestral hall, it would represent long life, and was called a '100 years of life' bowl.