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Lot Essay
Made during Korea’s Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), this elegant porcelain jar dates to the 18th century. Though its exact function remains unknown, it likely served as a storage jar and probably contained foodstuffs. Korean porcelains seldom show the bold palette of those from China’s Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties; rather, as strict followers of Neo-Confucianism, Koreans of the Joseon dynasty embraced an austere aesthetic vision, their porcelains sporting only limited decoration. In fact, many Joseon porcelains, such as this majestic jar, are unembellished, relying on tautness of form and beauty of glaze for their aesthetic appeal.
Korean potters had produced globular jars during the preceding Goryeo dynasty (918–1392) as well as elongated jars with an S-curve profile, such as the example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This jar’s form finds distant inspiration in meiping vessels created in China during the Northern Song period (960–1127). Despite the poetic name meaning “plum vase,” meiping (Korean, maebyeong) vessels were not originally used as vases for the display of cut branches of blossoming plum but were elegant storage bottles for wine and other liquids. Korean potters of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, during the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), gave the maebyeong form its classic interpretation, with broad shoulders, narrow waist, and lightly flaring foot.
Crafted in both porcelain and buncheong stoneware, the maebyeong form persisted into the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), following its own evolutionary path. Dated by inscription to 1489, a monumental Korean blue-and-white porcelain jar with pine and bamboo décor in the collection of Dongguk University Museum, Seoul (National Treasure no. 176; See: In Blue and White: Porcelain of the Joseon Dynasty, Seoul: National Museum of Korea, 2015, p. 14, no. 3), reveals that by the late fifteenth-century the maebyeong vessel had evolved from slender-necked bottle into wide-mouthed jar; it further reveals that in the transformation from bottle to jar, such vessels saw both an increase in size and a change in proportions, the shoulder becoming ever broader, presumably to accommodate the wider mouth (Fig. 1).
Unique to Korea, jars with bulging shoulders and gently curved side walls that descend to a constricted base were ubiquitous during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Formally termed jun in Korean, this jar shape is sometimes also called a “moon jar”—dal hangari —though that name technically should be reserved for large round jars whose globular shape recalls a full moon. Eighteenth century examples have a gentle S-curve and a broad shoulders, with a slightly higher vertical neck (Fig. 2); that classic form continues into the first decades of the nineteenth century. Jars from later in the nineteenth century, by contrast, exhibit a more mannered profile with narrower shoulders, an attenuated body, a beveled foot, and a tall, cylindrical neck.
Korean potters had produced globular jars during the preceding Goryeo dynasty (918–1392) as well as elongated jars with an S-curve profile, such as the example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This jar’s form finds distant inspiration in meiping vessels created in China during the Northern Song period (960–1127). Despite the poetic name meaning “plum vase,” meiping (Korean, maebyeong) vessels were not originally used as vases for the display of cut branches of blossoming plum but were elegant storage bottles for wine and other liquids. Korean potters of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, during the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), gave the maebyeong form its classic interpretation, with broad shoulders, narrow waist, and lightly flaring foot.
Crafted in both porcelain and buncheong stoneware, the maebyeong form persisted into the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), following its own evolutionary path. Dated by inscription to 1489, a monumental Korean blue-and-white porcelain jar with pine and bamboo décor in the collection of Dongguk University Museum, Seoul (National Treasure no. 176; See: In Blue and White: Porcelain of the Joseon Dynasty, Seoul: National Museum of Korea, 2015, p. 14, no. 3), reveals that by the late fifteenth-century the maebyeong vessel had evolved from slender-necked bottle into wide-mouthed jar; it further reveals that in the transformation from bottle to jar, such vessels saw both an increase in size and a change in proportions, the shoulder becoming ever broader, presumably to accommodate the wider mouth (Fig. 1).
Unique to Korea, jars with bulging shoulders and gently curved side walls that descend to a constricted base were ubiquitous during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Formally termed jun in Korean, this jar shape is sometimes also called a “moon jar”—dal hangari —though that name technically should be reserved for large round jars whose globular shape recalls a full moon. Eighteenth century examples have a gentle S-curve and a broad shoulders, with a slightly higher vertical neck (Fig. 2); that classic form continues into the first decades of the nineteenth century. Jars from later in the nineteenth century, by contrast, exhibit a more mannered profile with narrower shoulders, an attenuated body, a beveled foot, and a tall, cylindrical neck.