Porcelain reborn from sherds
Art Museum exhibition of restored blue-and-white porcelain from Yuan era connects ancient China and Eurasia
14 January 2026
At CUHK Art Museum, a collection of blue-and-white porcelain once exported from China to the Majapahit Empire, in what is modern-day Indonesia, is making a public debut after restoration specialists literally pieced together the past.
The history of these wares dates back more than 600 years, when they so fascinated aesthetes with the pottery craftsmanship and luminous cobalt pigment that demand was high across the region and even in the West, testifying to the bustling sea trade which characterised the Yuan dynasty.
Dispersed, shattered and buried for centuries, they have now been painstakingly restored, some to complete form, offering a tapestry of cross-cultural exchange between China and Eurasia.
“Some of the surviving pieces amounted to no more than a quarter of the original artefacts. Using these fragments alone, we had to reconstruct the whole thing,” Dr Zhang Li of Jingdezhen Ceramic University says of the challenge to conserve 14 key artefacts upon invitation by the Art Museum. The puzzles made it all the more satisfying when his restoration team attained its prime success: an underglaze-red ewer, the only known example of its kind in the world.
The ewer and more than 400 other ceramic objects of the Mongol Empire are now showing at the exhibition, “Yuan Blue and White: New Discoveries from Jingdezhen”. CUHK Art Museum and the Hong Kong Museum of Art both contributed artefacts alongside archaeological discoveries excavated by the Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Institute between 2023 and 2024.
Visitors can trace the history in three parts: the technological development of major Yuan kiln sites, the 2023-2024 archaeological finds, and the global circulation of blue-and-white porcelain through shipping, particularly to Southeast Asia.
14 puzzles to solve
Dr Zhang led a team of three graduate students to Hong Kong, where, in more than two months, they restored 14 objects from CUHK Art Museum’s collection, which were exports from ancient China and first discovered at Trowulan, East Java, in Indonesia. Of these, nine are presented to the public in their complete form for the first time.
In the Art Museum’s studio, Dr Zhang begins with the lightest of touches, cleaning the fragments gently with wet cotton swabs before paring away encrusted soil with scalpels. The fragments are then placed in an ultrasonic cleaner to shake off any remaining sediment.
Drawing on literature about Yuan porcelain, Dr Zhang studies the fragments closely and puts them together one by one. He fills in the large gaps with epoxy resin to form a stable structure and then recreates and refines the intended contours with plaster. A delicate misting of pigment, matching closely the original glaze colour, allows visitors to appreciate the porcelain in its old glory while clearly distinguishing the original material from new additions.
World’s only known Yuan underglaze-red ewer
The centrepiece of this collection is the underglaze-red ewer. It was a most unexpected discovery in the conservation process, emerging from what first appeared to be usual fragments of a ware’s neck and a broken base, according to Dr Wang Guanyu, Associate Curator (Antiquities) of the Art Museum.
Dr Wang recalls that when the fragments were first uncovered, they were considered as parts of the more common yuhuchun, a long-necked vase without a spout or a handle.
On close examination, Dr Zhang noticed a minute protrusion along the broken edge — barely perceptible, yet suggestive of a snapped handle. This prompted the team to reconsider the object’s identity and redirect the course of restoration.
Using this subtle clue as a fresh springboard, the team returned to previous publications and compared contemporaneous blue-and-white and underglaze-red wares to determine the most plausible form of the spout and handle. Three or four alternative designs were modelled and adjusted millimetre by millimetre, ensuring that the reconstructed elements would sit in quiet harmony with the surviving fragments. The conservators used epoxy resin to mould the internal structure, and plaster to refine the surface details, allowing the ewer to stand in wholeness once more before the public.
This restoration fills a missing piece in the history of Chinese ceramics, Dr Wang notes. “Although blue-and-white porcelains and metalwork from the period share similar ewer forms, no underglaze-red ewer has ever been published,” she explains. “This is, as far as we know, the only one of its kind. That is why we were determined to bring it back to life.”
Sea trade
Prior to the Yuan dynasty, Chinese potters had mastered underglaze painting using iron oxide. As the Mongol Empire expanded, stretching across Eurasia, maritime trade reached an unprecedented scale, allowing the import of cobalt pigment from West Asia into China on a notable scale for the first time. Combined with established underglaze techniques, the cobalt pigment produced the deep lustrous blue that went on to define Yuan blue-and-white porcelain, producing wares that quickly became highly sought-after exports across Asia.
“Blue-and-white porcelain, in both its materials and techniques, is itself the product of encounters between China and Eurasia,” Dr Wang says. “It is our hope that visitors can, from these collections, have a glimpse of the interactions between Chinese and other civilisations back then. They should be able to understand how Yuan maritime trade helped shape the cross-cultural aesthetics and styles, and how the blue-and-white porcelain was able to absorb different cultures and exert a global influence.”
The artefacts restored in this project were excavated at Trowulan, once the capital of the Majapahit Empire, the most powerful polity in 14th-century Southeast Asia. They testify to the region’s rise as a hub of maritime commerce and to the far-reaching cultural and economic networks that linked ancient China to the wider world.
Chinese-Muslim aesthetics
The forms and decorations on display reveal how blue-and-white porcelain absorbed and adapted to diverse cultural contexts. As Dr Wang explains, wares made for export were consciously adapted to cater to overseas tastes. For instance, since it was customary for West Asian Muslim societies to share meals from a single plate, Jingdezhen kilns produced large and flat blue-and-white platters, in marked contrast to the smaller wine vessels typically made for the domestic market and suited to local Chinese customs.
One such example — a 46cm wide plate with dense floral motifs — has been restored for this exhibition. Its use of reserve decoration, white patterns set against a cobalt ground, presents a technique far more complex than the standard blue-on-white painting. The dense geometry and vegetal arabesques echo Islamic decorative traditions, a sharp departure from the Chinese preference for deliberate blankness.
Over time, the cross-cultural aesthetic influences flowed back to China, reshaping mainstream trends during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Through this exchange, blue-and-white porcelain ultimately emerged as one of the most enduring and recognisable symbols of Chinese art.
Jingdezhen ware, Jiangxi province
Yuan (1271-1368)
Collection of CUHK Art Museum (2010.0408)
Gift of the Kwan Family
Discovered from Trowulan, East Java, Indonesia
New discoveries from 2023-2024: A phoenix takes flight
The exhibition also presents newly restored finds excavated by the Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Institute in 2023-2024. Among them is a yuhuchun vase painted with scenes from zaju, a form of Yuan-dynasty theatre, its brushwork so fine as to attest to exceptional technical mastery.
Another highlight is the third known example worldwide of an ewer with a phoenix design. With its spout shaped as a phoenix’s head and a body displaying wings in mid-flight, the ewer was likely a luxury object crafted for elite consumption.
Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province
Yuan (1271-1368)
Collection of Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Institute
Excavated from Luomaqiao kiln site in 2023
The central part was restored by sherds, while the two ends were generated with 3-D printing to present the ewer’s original shape
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Art Museum hosted a three-day international symposium, “The Origin and Global Circulation of Blue and White”, which was the second conference of the Society of International Ceramic Studies. More than 40 leading scholars from 14 countries presented in the symposium, exploring the historical trajectory of the creation and global dissemination of blue-and-white porcelain from multiple perspectives, including new archaeological discoveries, artistic exchanges, technological transmission and scientific analysis. Many of the findings were presented for the first time, unveiling fresh archaeological discoveries and showcasing the application of cutting-edge technological methods in related research. Together, these contributions substantially advanced the understanding of ancient ceramics.
Bringing together top experts from around the globe, the symposium stood out for both its scale and its academic quality. This reflects the significant position of CUHK in the field of ancient Chinese art research and its unique contribution to enhancing China’s cultural influence worldwide.
By Jessica Chu
Photos by Steven Yan and courtesy of CUHK Art Museum
“Yuan Blue and White: New Discoveries from Jingdezhen” exhibition
- Exhibition Period: 21 November 2025 to 29 March 2026
- Venue: Harold and Christina Lee Gallery, Lo Kwee Seong Pavilion, CUHK Art Museum
- Jointly Presented by: CUHK Art Museum and the Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Institute
- Lead Sponsor: Bei Shan Tang Foundation
- Strategic Partner and Sponsor: Lee Hysan Foundation
- Lender: Hong Kong Museum of Art
- Supporting Organisations: Tsientang Institute for Advanced Study and School of Archaeology and Museology, Jingdezhen Ceramic University
