The New Orleans Museum of Art celebrates the donation of a significant and wide-ranging collection of Chinese ceramics with the exhibition, “Five Thousand Years of Chinese Ceramics: The R. Randolph Richmond Jr Collection” on view from February 12 until April 10 in the Ella West Freeman Galleries.

This exhibition of 100 works provides an opportunity to see select works of the Chinese potters’ art from the Neolithic through the Yuan dynasties (approximately 4000 BC through the Fourteenth Century), featuring works from the major traditions and kilns. The exhibition showcases the extraordinary achievements of Chinese potters in both earthenware and stoneware, and in ceramics made for use in this world as well as the afterlife.

The exhibition’s objects are drawn from the donation of Robin and R. Randolph Richmond Jr of New Orleans, who have collected Chinese works of art for more than 50 years.

One of the earliest works in the exhibition, the tripod ewer (Gui) with twist handle, is a product of the late phase of the Dawenkou culture (circa 2800-2400 BC), one of China’s several, co-existing neolithic cultures. Each of these cultures is characterized by distinctive pottery, tools, dwelling types, ways of life and, in some cases, by the working of jade. Common to all, however, was the practice of provisioning the dead with goods needed in the afterlife. These goods included ceramic storage vessels for food and wine, bone and stone tools, items of personal adornment and, sometimes, jades, lacquers and silk.

The monumental horse, dating from the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD), is an extraordinarily dramatic example of a mingqi. Standing nearly 4 feet tall, this powerful animal served as an emblem of the social status and military prowess of its owner.

The Richmond collection is rich in works from the Tang period, particularly the large-scale figures, like the straw-glazed camel that would have been part of funerary assemblages created for the tombs of high-ranking officials and dignitaries. Typically, these figural groups were composed of pairs of officials, heavenly guardians, earth spirits, horses, camels and grooms. During funeral processions, these figures would have been borne on carts that preceded the coffin, proclaiming to all in attendance the status and wealth of the deceased, and by extension, the survivors. At the grave, the figures were arrayed at the tomb’s entrance, attending the deceased during interment. Subsequently the figures were placed within the tomb, where they assumed their function as servants and protectors of the deceased in the afterlife.

The martial values embraced by the Tang were largely rejected the subsequent Song dynasty that ruled China from 960 to 1279. Song wares embody a literati aesthetic, their understated forms deriving from nature, their monochrome glazes evoking the colors of the earth and sky. The Qingbai notched bowl with incised decoration, created at the kilns near Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, displays many of these Song characteristics. The bowl’s thin, pure white porcelain body is covered by a transparent glaze, tinged with blue. Six slight notches at the lip rim evoke the image of an open blossom. The floral allusion is furthered by the delicate design of buds and tendrils carved and combed on the interior of the bowl. The glaze pools in the slight recesses and bevels of the carving, subtly highlighting the decoration.

The New Orleans Museum of Art is at One Collins Diboll Circle in City Park. For information, 504-488-2631 or www.noma.org.