Blue and White Soup Spoon

A delicate example of the time-honored practice of blue-and-white ceramics, this 19th-century soup spoon was likely used as an everyday eating utensil. Used in China as early as the Shang dynasty (1600 - 1046 B.C.), spoons predated chopsticks and remained the most common utensil until the 10th century. The spoon's simple form is patterned with sweeping lines of blue, imparting a remarkable sense of movement and elevating it from a functional tool to a sculptural object.