Tea bowl

Bowl, broad ovoidal with expanding lip; bold foot. Five spur marks inside, and kiln-marks on foot. Gold lacquer repairs.
Clay: hard, fine, grayish, thinly potted. Porcelain.
Glaze: cream-white, crackled, with large areas of variable brownish discoloration.

Historical period(s)
Joseon period, second half of 16th century
Medium
Stoneware (unvitrified porcelain) with clear glaze; gold lacquer repairs
Dimensions
H x Diam: 7.1 × 15.7 cm (2 13/16 × 6 3/16 in)
Geography
Korea, western Gyeongsangnam-do province, Jinju city or Sancheong county
Credit Line
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art Collection
Accession Number
F1905.28
On View Location
Currently not on view
Classification(s)
Ceramic, Vessel
Type

Tea bowl (koraijawan)

Keywords
clear glaze, Joseon period (1392 - 1910), Korea, lacquer repair, stoneware, tea, unvitrified porcelain
Provenance

To 1905
Edward G. Getz, New York to 1905 [1]

From 1905 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Edward G. Getz in 1905 [2]

From 1920
Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]

Notes:

[1] See Original Pottery List, L. 1337, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.

[2] See note 1.

[3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.

Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)

Edward G. Getz (C.L. Freer source)
Charles Lang Freer 1854-1919

Description

Bowl, broad ovoidal with expanding lip; bold foot. Five spur marks inside, and kiln-marks on foot. Gold lacquer repairs.
Clay: hard, fine, grayish, thinly potted. Porcelain.
Glaze: cream-white, crackled, with large areas of variable brownish discoloration.

Label

Provincial Korean porcelain bowls were prized as tea bowls in Japan. Discoloration of the clay of such bowls was caused by the tea's seeping through pores in the glaze. Japanese connoisseurs poetically compared the subtle variations in color to the rain-stained plaster walls of a dilapidated hut. Gold lacquer was the material customarily used in Japan for ornamental repairs of chips and cracks.

Published References
  • Louise Allison Cort. Korean Ceramics in the Freer Gallery of Art. .
  • Andrew Maske. Potters and Patrons in Edo Period Japan: Takatori Ware and the Kuroda Domain. Farnham, Surry, UK and Burlington, Vermont. fig. 1.1.
  • Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections. 12 vols., Tokyo. vol. 10, pl. 255.
  • Korean Art in the Freer and Sackler Galleries. Washington. nos. 3.2, 4.8, pp. 27, 40.
  • Neuzeit: Bernd Trasberger. p. 49.
  • Louise Allison Cort. Japanese and Korean Ceramics. vol. 36, no. 1 Hong Kong, January-February 2006. p. 104, fig. 5.
  • Ideals of Beauty: Asian and American Art in the Freer and Sackler Galleries. Thames and Hudson World of Art London and Washington, 2010. pp. 164-165.
Collection Area(s)
Korean Art
Web Resources
Korean Ceramics in the Freer Gallery of Art
Google Cultural Institute
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