Twelve Beauties
Twelve ceramic figures that only make sense together — a reading of Dream of the Red Chamber, held in private collections worldwide.
- Year
- Series, ongoing
- Status
- Private collection · Commissioned
- Form
- Ceramic · Sculpture
- Materials
- Hand-built ceramic, marbled and painted glazes; each set fired as one
- Dimensions
- Twelve figures, c. 28–36 cm each
- Edition
- Made to order; no two sets identical
The work
The poems in Dream of the Red Chamber are like water grass: lifted out of the water they lose everything; left in the water they are beautiful. The twelve were modelled as a single atmosphere rather than twelve portraits — one figure alone is grass out of water; together they become the water.
The vessels and patterns each figure carries do not quote the novel's familiar motifs. They tell the maker's own story and his own reading of the book — which is, he argues, what its opening quatrain asks of any reader.
Because the sets are entirely handmade, the loss rate is high — a single cracked figure can retire a whole set. The atelier keeps to the method regardless: only what survives the kiln is unrepeatable.
Twelve Beauties — the complete set of twelve
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Twelve Beauties — single figure, detail of vessel and pattern
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Twelve Beauties — making: clay, kiln, glaze
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Cultural source
Cao Xueqin, Dream of the Red Chamber — the Twelve Beauties of Jinling and the novel's opening quatrain.
The artist's transformation
Literary source → the artist's own iconography → a set that is a single object. The work has become the atelier's model for commissions that begin with a text a family or a company holds dear.
Making
Modelled in clay, hollowed, dried slowly, glazed by hand, fired as a set. Provenance for each set is recorded in the atelier archive.
Scale & variation
Sets can be commissioned around another text or a family's own story: twelve, eight, or a single figure.
Placement
A private cabinet, a study, a boardroom vitrine, a gift that carries a story.
Certificate & provenance
Every completed commission is delivered with a certificate of authenticity, a unique work ID, a cultural source note and a making record, and is entered into the atelier's private provenance archive.
Commission
Commission a work in this direction
Made to order, price on request; installations are project-based.
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