Introduction:
Louise Allison Cort is Curator for Ceramics, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.
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Abstract:
Ceramic production in the areas neighboring Hanoi has been central to Vietnamese culture and economy from the historical period to the present. In Chu Dau, Bat Trang, and Huong Canh, the locus of the village and its villagers is the production of ceramic goods and the tradition that production represents. There is great diversity in the ware types produced and ethnicities that produced them, today and in the past. The desire to keep pottery manufacture a local tradition and source for revenue, whether for local trade or export, has driven changes in the production of ware types, methods of production, and technologies.
This article first appeared in Asian Art & Culture, vol. 7 no. 1 (1994), pp. 44–61. Reproduced with permission.
