
“If Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) were threatened with destruction, and I could save only one artefact, it would be the porcelain ‘Dancing Lady’ in the Trade Gallery.”
– contributed by Tim Clark, ACM Council Member
Oscar Wilde maintained that something that is perfectly beautiful should be perfectly useless, but she mocks this statement. Despite being adorably decorative, it always surprises visitors when I tell them that she was actually made with a mundane function in mind.
Her hair piece is a disguised wooden stopper, and her arm is hollow, allowing her to be used as a pouring pot. But for pouring what?
The answer requires some speculative detective work, the type docents love to indulge in. A clue lies in the fact that, being decorated in the kinrande style (a Japanese word meaning ‘gold brocade’), this Chinese beauty was probably made for the Japanese market. At least two examples are found today in Japanese museum collections in Tokyo and Osaka. So, could she have been used for pouring sake? She could, but I think not. Just as I question the British museum’s description of a similar figure in their Sir Percival David collection as a wine ewer. Wine or sake would surely spoil in a container so hard to clean out, and her limited capacity would do little to satisfy a wine connoisseur.
In my humble opinion, she would have been used for the same purpose in Japan as she might have done in China – as a water-dropper, to administer carefully controlled amounts of water for making ink. (Photo 1)
A HIDDEN SECRET IN THE RISING HORSE
This brings us to the question of what does our ‘Dancing Lady’ have in common with the ‘Rising Horse’ (Photo 2) besides both being made of porcelain in Jingdezhen? On the face of it, the horse served a very different purpose. That lacquer orb mounted on the horse’s back was clearly used for burning incense, conceivably to sweeten the air in the boudoir of one of Louis XV’s mistresses. It is rather de trop (over the top) reflecting the Rococo era when excessive ornamentation was a la mode. But if you strip it of its ormolu French gilt metalwork, and unseat the lacquer container with its coral finial, then the purpose for which it was originally designed will be revealed. Yes, it was originally a water-dropper.
This revelation only dawned on me when I visited the museum dedicated to the French East Indies trade at Port Louis in Brittany, France. There they have an unadorned version of a similar contemporary rising horse. (Photo 3). This lovely golden horse with a silvery mane, made during the early Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty (1662-1722), has a hole in its back for filling with water. Its mouth, like the arm of the ‘Dancing Lady’, serves as a spout for delivering controlled quantities of water onto an ink stone to produce the perfect consistency of ink for Chinese or Japanese calligraphy.

ACM Dancing Lady
Porcelain Dancing Lady, Jingdezhen mid-16th Century. Courtesy of Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM)

Horse incense burner
Horse incense burner, Jingdezhen porcelain, early 18th century with Japanese lacquer bowl set with coral and French gilded bronze mounting. Courtesy of ACM.

Horse water-dropper
Horse water-dropper, Port Louis Museum, France. Photo by Tim Clark.