TREASURES FROM A 15TH CENTURY SHIPWRECK
w Six centuries ago, a typhoon zone known as the Dragon Sea claimed 250,000 Vietnamese ceramics when a cargo ship carrying them sank down 230 feet onto the floor of the South China Sea off the coast of Hoi An, a port city in Vietnam.
Fishermen trawling for fish accidentally discovered the shipwreck in the early 1990s, and in 2000, the Birmingham Museum of Art bought some of these treasures at a San Francisco public auction. You can view some of these rare objects for yourself from now until April 8th at the Birmingham Museum of Art’s Dragons and Lotus Blossoms exhibition, which showcases these sunken treasures as well as other pieces from the museum’s permanent Asian art collection.
These ceramic treasures from the permanent collection range from dishes delicately adorned with blue lotus flowers, peonies, or chrysanthemums, to tigers, winged horses, and dragons living for eternity on 16th century jars. Tiny blue and white parrotshaped bowls remain intact in a glass case even though they were recovered from a 15th century shipwreck.
After the fishermen’s accidental discovery, excavation of the site began. “The Vietnamese government soon took over the site and partnered with Oxford University and a private salvage company to excavate the site,” says Donald Wood, Ph.D., the Virginia and William M. Spencer III Curator of Asian Art. Dr. Wood developed the Dragons and Lotus Blossoms exhibition. “It took four years to bring up some 250,000 Vietnamese ceramics that went down with the ship. The Vietnamese government kept all unique pieces discovered for their museums, plus 10 percent of the rest of the pieces discovered. The rest of the pieces were sold at a San Francisco public auction in 2000 to raise funds to cover the costs of the excavation and the conservation of the pieces,” Dr. Wood says.
“The Museum bought pieces from this sale.
These are now on display in the exhibition.”
One of the gallery rooms in the exhibition displays a photo of a Vietnamese soldier holding a gun on a ship with the caption, “Vietnamese military guarding against pirates, looters, and sightseers.” When most of us think of Vietnam, we think of the war fought there in the 1960s and 1970s. We don’t think of an indigenous culture “whose relics provide a bridge to the past,” as a documentary film in the exhibition states.
According to this documentary, sacred temples were destroyed in Vietnam during the war, and so these ceramics featured at the museum can show us what was important to indigenous Vietnamese cultures centuries ago.
Many ceramic dishes and pieces of pottery feature animals such as tigers, deer, dragons, cranes, and winged horses, as well as lotus flowers, the Buddhist symbol of purity; chrysanthemums, which symbolize a wish for long life; and peonies, which are a symbol of good fortune, wealth, honor, and love. A tiger crouching on a 16th century jar has black stripes of fur on his forehead, forming the Chinese character for “king.”
An ornate, glazed stoneware jar from the 16th century features a magic horse with wings, a creature that appears in many Vietnamese stories and tales. Cranes, a symbol of long life and immortality, also appear on this jar. A pamphlet at the exhibition contains additional information about the animals, birds, plants, mythical beasts, and water creatures that adorn these Vietnamese ceramics.
The museum will host special events related to the exhibition, such as the book discussion they had on March 8th on Frank Pope’s book, “The Dragon Sea: A True Tale of Treasure, Archaeology, and Greed off the Coast of Vietnam.” This book is available for purchase at the museum store and provides details of the Hoi An wreck. If you would like to know more about shipwrecks other than the Titanic, you can go to an Art Break at noon on April 3rd to hear Ervan Garrison, Ph.D., discuss underwater archaeology as it relates to objects in the Dragons and Lotus Blossoms exhibition. Other special events include “First Thursday” on April 5th , in which Dr. Wood will lead a tour of the exhibition at 6 pm and a Vietnamese film selected by the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival will be shown at 7 pm. First Thursdays also include tapas and cocktails from Oscar’s, the museum’s café. The museum stays open until 9 pm on First Thursdays for people who can’t visit the museum during working hours.
Kristen Greenwood, assistant curator of education for public programs, states that, “we have the types of events you run into in other cities such as First Thursdays and Art on the Rocks.” The exhibition and these types of special events are free. “It’s very important to us to keep the museum free,” Greenwood says. “We are a museum for the community.”
Free admission is impressive, considering that Dragons and Lotus Blossoms is the first exhibition of such widely ranging Vietnamese ceramics to be held in North America. Dr. Wood echoes the spirit of community championed by Greenwood.
“We realized we had one of the best collections in the U.S. and wanted to share it with everyone. This is the first large-scale exhibition of Vietnamese ceramics in the U.S.,” Dr. Wood states. “Only the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, have comparable collections. It is beautiful material from a part of the world that most people will never be able to visit, and it shows the unique aesthetic spirit of the dynamic Vietnamese people.”
For more information on the exhibition and special events, visit www.artsbma.org.