Quick Answer: How Do Chinese Objects Record Dates?
A Chinese date inscription can identify a year within a reign, a repeating year in the sixty-year cycle, or the occasion when an object was given or inscribed. Find the event the date describes before trying to put it on a modern calendar.[1][2][3][5]
- Dedication: Read the dated act alongside the donor and recipient.[1][2]
- Reign wording: A porcelain mark can name an era without naming a specific year.[3][4]
- Cyclical year: The same pair can point to more than one year.[5][6]
Copy the date and the neighboring words together, including any month, seasonal phrase, signature or dedication.
The place to look depends on the object. On the David Vases, long dedications sit on the necks above the dragon bands. On an imperial-style porcelain vessel, a short mark may sit under the foot. A painting can place its date beside the artist’s signature.[1][3][4][6]
Read the Event Before Converting the Date
The British Museum describes the David Vases as gifts from Zhang Wenjin to a Daoist temple. The inscription gives the eleventh year of Zhizheng (至正, Zhìzhèng), a Yuan reign era, and names the fourth month. Scholars place the dedication in 1351. The inscription dates the offering. For historians of ceramics, that also establishes that vessels with this decoration already existed in 1351.[1][2]
Before converting the words into a Western year, look for the verb. A date can go with an act of giving, painting or writing. If you have only a cropped photo of the date, a wider view can show which statement it belongs to.[1][2][6]
A Reign Year and a Reign Mark
A reign mark (年号款, niánhào kuǎn) commonly names an era and says the piece was made during it. In a common six-character pattern, the first two characters name the dynasty, the next two give the era, and the last two say the object was made in those years. A dedication that specifies year eleven gives more precise calendar information than that formula.[2][3]
Compare the words with the object’s catalog date. In the British Museum’s exhibition guide, a brush pot made around 1800–1850 bears a Qianlong mark on its base. The Qianlong name on the base points to the eighteenth century. The catalog entry gives the production date independently of the wording. Read Chinese porcelain marks alongside the dating evidence for the object.[3][4]
A Cyclical Year and a Season
A ganzhi (干支, gānzhī) date combines a Heavenly Stem and an Earthly Branch. The cycle of sixty pairs means that a year name can recur after sixty years. Compare the candidate years with independent clues such as the artist’s lifetime or a separate dated inscription.[5][6]
A Ming birthday portrait by Ruan Zude gives xinyou (辛酉, xīnyǒu) and mentions the fifth month in summer. The Metropolitan Museum study retains 1561 and 1621 as possibilities. The fifth month places the occasion within the traditional year. Either of the two years still fits. Read the numbered month in its own calendar before mapping it to a Gregorian calendar date for a specific year.[5][6]
FAQs About Chinese Date Inscriptions
Does a reign mark give the exact year of manufacture?
A typical reign mark names a reign era. The date can be broader than a single year, and a later maker may use an earlier reign name. Check the object’s catalog entry for its assigned date.[3][4]
Can two calendar years fit the same date inscription?
Yes. The sixty-year cycle repeats. A Ming portrait with a xinyou date is cataloged as 1561 or 1621 because both years fit the inscription.[5][6]
資料來源
[1] British Museum via Google Arts & Culture. The David Vases
[2] John Alexander Pope, Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art. Fourteenth-Century Blue-and-White
[3] Palace Museum. Imperial Ceramics and Reign Marks
[4] British Museum. China’s Hidden Century Exhibition Guide
[5] Hong Kong Observatory. Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches
[6] Quincy Ngan, Metropolitan Museum Journal. Azurite Blue in Two Ming Dynasty Birthday Portraits