There’s a fine line between what art is and what crafts are, and many crafts are easily classified as art, too. Craft making requires a great deal of skill and technique, and they are made by hand to be, in most cases, utilitarian. Like art, craft making employs the same formal qualities that achieve things such as balance and aesthetic appeal. The Chinese are known for their intricate craft items. Most popular are the Chinese’s blue and white porcelain, their jade, and their textile designs. But, there are other materials lesser known that the Chinese also used in craft making. One such craft item is housed at the Chrysler Museum. It is a rhinoceros horn libation cup, made during the Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty in the 18th century.
The Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty spanned from 1644CE to 1912CE. It followed the Ming dynasty, ushered in by Manchu invaders who conquered the capital. The Manchu “had no political or cultural traditions of their own” and preserved old traditional cultural ideas, such as Confucianism, rather than developing their own (Munsterberg 1972, 195-96). The Qing dynasty was a time of immense change in China, which had throughout history kept itself closed off from the rest of the world. It was during this dynasty that the Chinese government finally opened up its borders to the British to foster trade relations (Gascoigne 2003, 183-84). The dominant art form of the Qing dynasty was still porcelain, but painting was also held in high regard (Munsterberg 1972, 195-96). By the 18th century, when the libation cup was made, the Chinese were still holding on to may of their same customs and traditions but were experiencing a dynamic movement forward into a new realm of modernization with Western influences.
Libation cups are made for religious leaders and participants in religious ceremonies. They are used to make offerings of liquids like wine to spirits, sacred deities, or gods. It was in the 18th century that the Chinese Daoist tradition began to decline; this libation cup represents that dying vestige of Chinese tradition (Renard 2002, 370-71). It’s carved out of rhinoceros horn, which is believed to be magic and has within it “antipyretic (fever reducing), antidotal, and aphrodisiac properties” (Hong Kong Museum). The color is monochromatic, a dark red/brown that unifies the cup portion with the dragon that is carved above the handle. The one color makes the cup and dragon one cohesive and continuous mass that is noticeably carved out of same block of material. Its three-dimensional shape is that of a small tub with a handle and a base. It curves into a bowl with a small mouth at the end to pour from. Starting from the handle, an implied line is drawn that dips into the bowl of the cup and out through the spout in the same motion that liquid would flow. The dragon calls attention and focus there, to the handle, where pouring starts and the line follows the motion to the end. The rhinoceros horn is smooth; the most textured part of the cup is the dragon adornment, which is carved to appear as if it is crawling around the brim. The cup is balanced by the symmetry of the cup, though it’s offset by the dragon so that it looks heavier in the back. This heaviness is further balanced by the lightness of the handle to that it does not appear too heavy on one end.
The 18th century Chinese libation cup stands as an object of tradition in a time when tradition was falling away to make new paths for modernization. It stands as a representation of a religion that was giving way to new systems and beliefs. It is also distinct as a craft item that was made out of a material that was not as common or popular as some other materials like porcelain or jade. The libation cup is a piece of art in its craftsmanship, in the way it was carved so precisely out of the horn in to a curving, fluid form perfect that is for its function but still beautifully detailed from dragon to mouth.