Makers › Master Craftsmen
Yang Mao
Late Yuan lacquer carver from Yanghui in Xitang, Jiaxing, ranked with Zhang Cheng and known from pieces needle-signed 'Yang Mao zao'
A craft workshop centres on a potter's wheel holding a tall celadon vase, amid racks of red lacquer boxes, an embroidery frame with a floral design, shelves of celadon ware, carved wooden panels and stacked logs, while one craftsman works at a table and another stands at a glowing kiln.
Also known as Signed 'Yang Mao zao'
- Roles
- Master Craftsmen
Yang Mao was a lacquer worker from Yanghui in Xitang, Jiaxing prefecture, at the end of the Yuan; the Jiaxing gazetteer pairs him with Zhang Cheng as the best-known makers of carved red lacquer. He favoured flowers and landscapes with figures, cut with a smooth, assured knife. The Palace Museum in Beijing holds his octagonal carved red dish with a figure watching a waterfall, whose faint needle-cut Yang Mao mark was later joined by a Xuande reign mark, as well as a carved red zun with flowers; the Metropolitan Museum of Art assigns him a carved red peony dish and a small guri box.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active in the late Yuan