Blue and White Porcelain Spoon

A delicate example of the time-honored practice of blue-and-white ceramics, this 19th-century porcelain 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 refined porcelain form is brushed in cobalt overglaze with a quiet scene of three scholars gathered in a garden.