Vivaci Trasparenze: Yaozhou ceramics from the Shang Shan Tang collection is an exhibition of ceramics entirely dedicated to the manufactories of Yaozhou, located about 100 km north of Xi'an, in northern China (where the famous terracotta army of the First Emperor is located ), which will be held at the Museum of Oriental Art in Venice from 7 September to 23 October 2022, with the organization of the Ca 'Foscari University Foundation and MAOV.

Ca 'Foscari University of Venice, with its Department of Studies on Asia and Mediterranean Africa, and the Oriental Art Museum of the Veneto Regional Museums Directorate once again collaborate for the realization of high-profile scientific and informative events, in a synergy of useful and necessary aims for the dissemination of knowledge of extra-European cultures.

The Yaozhou kiln, active between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, revolutionized the production of celadon ceramics , becoming the most influential manufacture in the whole empire. In the field of ceramics, China holds several records: it was in fact the first country to invent porcelain between the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh century (while in Europe they succeeded a thousand years after the alchemists at the court of Augustus the Strong ( 1670-1733) in Meissen), but, even earlier, in the 13th century BC, there had been made objects with a highly refractory body coated with a layer of green glazing (with various shades), commonly known in the West as celadon and in China as qingci (stoneware with green-blue glazing). This ceramic genre has met with enormous success precisely for its green-blue shades that evoke jade, the symbolic material of China, or the patina on ancient bronzes, another emblem of the millenary Chinese civilization.

The 96 works on display all come from a foreign private collection, the 上 善堂 Shang Shan Tang, literally "Hall of the highest good", which includes one of the most complete collections of Yaozhou ceramics in the world , with specimens of excellent quality, which testify to the development of manufacturing.

All the pieces will be exhibited in the evocative room 12 of the Museum of Oriental Art, which in 1928 was destined to house the Chinese porcelain of what was once the collection of Henry of Bourbon. The historic setting conceived by Nino Barbantini has been preserved since then and harmonizes the extraordinary Asian pieces with the characters of a Rococo apartment, adorned with eighteenth-century mirrors and stuccoes, creating