Pun Design ：

Official Hat + Wine Vessel

Punning Details：

The combination of ‘jia 加 putting on’ and ‘guan 冠 hat’ – ‘jia guan 加冠’ is a pun on ‘jia guan 加官’, meaning ‘receiving an official title’.

The action of presenting the wine vessel is called ‘jin 进’ in Chinese, which puns on ‘jin 晋’ meaning ‘promoting’. ‘Jue 爵 bronze wine vessel’ puns on ‘jue 爵’ (the same character) for ‘high official rank’. Hence, ‘jin jue 进爵 presenting the jue cup’ puns on ‘jin jue 晋爵’ for ‘getting promotion to higher rank’.

In some compositions, a child wearing a seemingly unfit official cap, which is a ‘guan 冠’, is offering a dignitary a jue cup. Since both ‘guan 冠 cap’ puns on ‘guan 官 official title’ and ‘jue 爵 bronze wine cup’ puns on ‘jue 爵 high official rank’, the image communicates the message of ‘jia guan jin jue 加官晋爵’.

Related Pun Pictures:

May you get promoted 加官

May your chance of promotion be just round the corner 指日高升

• Fig 1-2: covered porcelain jar with underglaze blue decoration, c.1620-1644, courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum

  Fig 3: porcelain bottle with underglaze blue decoration, c.1550-1644, courtesy of Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

  Fig 4: porcelain vase with underglaze blue decoration, Chongzhen period (1628-44), Ming dynasty, courtesy of Porcelain Collection, Dresden State Art Museums

  Fig 5: porcelain bottle with underglaze blue decoration, c. 1635-45, courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Holland

  Fig 6: porcelain vase with underglaze blue decoration, c. 1635-50, courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Holland

  Fig 7: porcelain dish with underglaze blue decoration, Shunzhi period (1644-61), Qing dynasty, courtesy of Palace Museum, Beijing

  Fig 8: beaker vase with underglaze blue and overglaze enamelled decoration, Shunzhi period (1644-61), Qing dynasty, courtesy of Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, Accession no. EA1978.1179

  Fig 9: famille verte porcelain bowl, Kangxi period (1662-1722), Qing dynasty, courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Holland

  Fig 10: covered ewer, Kangxi period (1662-1722), Qing dynasty, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

  Fig 11: famille verte porcelain plaque, Kangxi period (1662-1722), Qing dynasty, courtesy of Palace Museum, Beijing

  Fig 12: porcelain yenyen vase with underglaze blue decoration, Kangxi period (1662-1722), Qing dynasty, courtesy of The Dresden Porcelain Collection, State Art Collections of Dresden, Germany

  Fig 13: porcelain brush holder with underglaze blue and overglaze enamelled decoration, Kangxi period (1662-1722), Qing dynasty, courtesy of Shanghai Museum, China