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拍品专文
Used as storage vessels and occasionally as vases for monumental floral displays at banquets and ceremonies, such large, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted jars were popular in Korea from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. Some feature striding dragons, others boast tigers, haetae 獬豸, or other favored beasts, and yet others sport floral designs or auspicious Chinese characters. Rare ones feature figural decoration, but the rarest of all boast landscape décor. Made in the late eighteenth century, toward the end of Korea’s Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), this exceptionally rare jar features four landscape roundels interspersed with columns of calligraphy, each landscape separated from the next by a line from a poem inscribed in a column of seven Chinese characters.
With landscape roundels alternating with columns of calligraphy, this jar’s decoration is exceptionally innovative and virtually unique, giving it special status in the realm of Joseon porcelains. The poem, which is in Chinese, is a quatrain of four lines, each line with seven characters written in running script 行書. The poem reads and can be translated:
萬隠空満明月帰 All is hidden in the void, the bight moon returns,
来風使人釣江深 The stirring breeze draws one to fish in the deep river,
萬川向流陶人歌 Ten thousand flowing streams carry the potter’s song,
長生不老神仙訓 The immortal’s teaching speaks of eternal life.
Although the paintings are not literal illustrations of the inscribed texts, the poem and the landscapes convey a Daoist air and touch on matters dear to both Korean and Chinese literati, from the moon and gentle breezes to flowing streams and fishing to music, immortals, and eternal life. Among other possibilities, the paintings might be generic landscapes, they might be landscapes of the four seasons, or they might be four of the Eight Views of Xiaoxiang 瀟湘八景, pronounced Xiaoxiang Bajing in Chinese and Sosang Palgyeong 소상팔경 in Korean. Part of a long poetic and artistic legacy and popular among both Chinese and Korean painters, the theme depicts scenes of the Xiaoxiang region in China’s Hunan province 湖南省.
The painting on the best Korean blue-and-white porcelains, as exemplified by the landscapes on this jar, closely approximates that on paper and silk, following a tradition begun already in the fifteenth century. These paintings, for example, resonate with landscapes done by the famous eighteenth-century, Korean master Jeong Seon 謙齋 鄭敾 (1676–1759), with echoes of the styles of such Chinese artists as Shen Zhou 沈周 (1427–1509) and Wang Hui 王翬 (1632–1717). In particular, the landscapes on this jar recall such paintings by Jeong Seon as the Saseongjeong Pavilion 四仙亭, a leaf in an album of views of Mt. Geumgang 金剛山 (in Kangwondo province 江原道 in present-day North Korea) in the collection of the National Museum of Korea, Seoul 서울 國立中央博物館 (museum no. Deoksu 903-3).[i] The paintings on this jar also relate to several Jeong Seon landscapes in the collection of the Kansong Museum of Art, Seoul 서울 澗松美術館, including the Apgujeong Pavilion[ii] 狎鷗亭 and the Gwuiraejeong Pavilion[iii] 歸來亭.
Jars of such form are usually termed ho 壺 in Korean but are occasionally called jun 樽 as well, the characters pronounced hu and zun respectively in Chinese. Although this jar shape is sometimes referred to as a “moon jar”—dal hangari 달 항아리 in Korean—that name technically should be reserved for large round jars whose globular shape and unembellished white surfaces suggest a bright full moon.
With its bulging shoulders, constricted waist, and strong S-profile, this jar’s form finds distant inspiration in celadon-glazed maebyeong 梅瓶 bottles created in Korea during the Goryeo dynasty 高麗時代 (918–1392). The maebyeong form persisted into Korea’s Joseon dynasty, giving rise to jars of this type. Dated by inscription to 1489, a monumental blue-and-white porcelain jar with pine and bamboo décor in the collection of Dongguk University Museum, Seoul[iv] 서울 東國大學校博物館 (museum no. 동국대 797 / Dongguk Dae 797) 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 in order to accommodate the jar’s wider mouth. As evinced by a porcelain jar embellished with a branch of fruiting grapevine painted in underglaze iron brown, the jar now in the collection of Ewha Womans University Museum, Seoul[v] 서울 梨花女子大學校博物館, early eighteenth-century potters gave the jar form the robust interpretation that would continue through the end of the dynastic era. 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.
Korean potters began to produce blue-and-white ware 青花瓷器—i.e., porcelain with designs painted in underglaze cobalt blue—as early as the fifteenth century, inspired by Chinese porcelains of the early Ming period 明朝 (1368–1644). Many extant Korean porcelains from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries feature designs painted in underglaze iron brown, but blue-and-white ware appeared in quantity again in the late seventeenth century and would dominate the later Korean ceramic tradition.
This jar was likely made at the Bunwon kilns 分院, where the finest Korean porcelain was produced during the Joseon dynasty. Located in Bunwon-ri, near Gwangju, in Gyeonggi province 京畿道廣州市分院里, and about thirty-five kilometers to the southeast of Seoul, the kilns had a long and distinguished history stretching back to the mid-1460s, when they were established to produce porcelains for the royal court. In 1752 the official kilns settled at their final location at Bunwon-ri where they continued to function as the official court kilns until their privatization in 1883. Several different grades of porcelains were manufactured there, including those for the royal court as well as ones for various central-government offices and also for wealthy private patrons.
The cobalt-blue of the best Chinese porcelains ranges from dark royal to navy blue, but that of the finest Korean porcelains wares typically is a pale, almost silvery blue, as evinced by the designs painted on this jar. The decorative schemes on Chinese wares generally are continuous, stretching uninterrupted all ’round the vessel; by contrast, the decoration on Korean porcelains often is discontinuous, arranged in discrete design units, as witnessed by this jar’s individual roundels. The Korean wares’ lack of borders—or, if used, very simple borders, such as this jar’s ruyi-shaped cloud collar 如意雲肩 encircling the top of the shoulder—stands in marked contrast to the elaborate upper and lower borders characteristic of Chinese wares.
Although a few large Joseon blue-and-white jars include an abbreviated landscape as a setting for animals or human figures in the foreground, landscape decoration as the principal subject matter is exceptionally rare.[vi] An eighteenth-century globular jar with landscape roundels in a Japanese collection is closest in style to the present jar.[vii] Each jar sports four landscape roundels painted in similar style, and each has a ruyi cloud collar at the base of the neck. The only significant differences are that the present jar features an inscribed poem and includes an abbreviated cloud collar border below the landscape roundels. The two jars’ visual and stylistic similarity argues for an eighteenth-century date of manufacture for the present jar.
Another famous jar, formerly owned by Park Byŏng-rae 朴秉來 (1903–1974; also spelled Pak Byeongrae) and now in the collection of the National Museum of Korea, Seoul, boasts two landscapes, each set in an ogival panel, the jar with a ruyi cloud collar at the top of the shoulder and an emphatic band of rising, stylized lotus petals above the jar’s constricted base.[viii] A clump of bamboo appears between the two ogival panels on one side and an old, weathered branch of blossoming plum appears between them on the other side. The two landscapes show kinship to those on the present jar; even so, the compositions on the National Museum jar are more open, including more water and sky than land. After the official kilns settled at their final location at Bunwon-ri in 1752, the potters who decorated the porcelain jars included ample unembellished white areas in their landscape designs, which we read as water and sky, pointing to a late eighteenth-century date for the National Museum jar.
Its bold form, innovative design, excellent potting, vibrant brushwork, and silvery hued cobalt blue make this an exemplary eighteenth-century blue-and-white jar, while its virtually unique combination of fine calligraphy and exquisite painting marks it as a one-of-a-kind work. The rarity, importance, superb quality, and fine condition elevate this magnificent jar to the rank of major masterpiece of Joseon blue-and-white porcelain.
Robert D. Mowry 毛瑞
Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art Emeritus,
Harvard Art Museums, and
Senior Consultant, Christie’s
[i] See: https://www.museum.go.kr/site/eng/relic/represent/view?relicId=991
[ii] See: https://kansong.org/foundation/index.do?menu_id=00004389&menu_link=%2Ffront%2Fclctn%2FdetailCollectionFront.do&clctn_id=CLCTN_00000065&clctn_dcd=ART_00025_02&searchCondition6=&pageUnitF=12&searchKeyword=&pageIndex=8
[iii] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansong_Art_Museum#/media/File:Jeong_Seon-Guirae.jeong.jpg
[iv] Korean National Treasure no. 176 / 韓國國寶第176號; see: National Museum of Korea, ed. [韓國國立中央博物館編輯], In Blue and White: Porcelain of the Joseon Dynasty (Seoul: National Museum of Korea), 2015, p. 14, no. 3; also see: https://www.emuseum.go.kr/detail?relicId=PS0100501100100079700000
[v] Korean National Treasure no. 107 / 韓國國寶第107號; see Carolyn Kyongshin Koh Choo 高慶信, Traditional Korean Ceramics: A Look by a Scientist (Seoul: Designnanoom), 2016, pp. 218-219, Figs. 10-15a and 10-15b; also see: https://cms.ewha.ac.kr/user/indexSub.action?codyMenuSeq=3006709&siteId=museumeng&menuUIType=top&dum=dum&boardId=3006558&page=1&command=albumView&boardSeq=3075842&chkBoxSeq=&categoryDepth=
[vi] Blue-and-white jars with abbreviated landscapes include the jar with decoration of Three Worthies Playing Weiqi that sold at Christie's, New York, on 22 September 2020 (Lot 251) and the famous Ataka Collection 安宅藏 jar with tiger and magpie decoration in the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka 大阪市立東洋陶磁美術館 (museum no. 00139); see: https://apisites.jmapps.ne.jp/mocoor/en/collection/1038?kwd_and_or=and&f50=1&list_type=LLC&list_count=10&title_query=yes&page=1&sort_field=&sort_type=asc
[vii] See: Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, ed., Blue and White of the Latter Yi Dynasty, Korea (Osaka: Museum of Oriental Ceramics), Korean Ceramics series 14, 1989, p 10, no. 27 / 大阪市立東洋陶磁美術館編, 《李朝後期染付》 (大阪: 大阪市立東洋陶磁美術館), 朝鮮陶磁シリーズ, 14, 1989年, 頁10, 圖27; also see: Rhee Byung-chang, Masterpieces of Korean Art (Tokyo: Rhee Byung-chang; distributed by University of Tokyo Press), 1978, pp. 196-197, no. 205 / 李秉昌著, 《韓国美術蒐選》 (東京: 李秉昌; 東京大學出版社發行), 1978年, 頁196-197, 圖205.
[viii] See: Rhee Byung-chang, Masterpieces of Korean Art (Tokyo: Rhee Byung-chang; distributed by University of Tokyo Press), 1978, pp. 198-199, no. 206 / 李秉昌著, 《韓国美術蒐選》 (東京: 李秉昌; 東京大學出版社發行), 1978年, 頁198-199, 圖206.
With landscape roundels alternating with columns of calligraphy, this jar’s decoration is exceptionally innovative and virtually unique, giving it special status in the realm of Joseon porcelains. The poem, which is in Chinese, is a quatrain of four lines, each line with seven characters written in running script 行書. The poem reads and can be translated:
萬隠空満明月帰 All is hidden in the void, the bight moon returns,
来風使人釣江深 The stirring breeze draws one to fish in the deep river,
萬川向流陶人歌 Ten thousand flowing streams carry the potter’s song,
長生不老神仙訓 The immortal’s teaching speaks of eternal life.
Although the paintings are not literal illustrations of the inscribed texts, the poem and the landscapes convey a Daoist air and touch on matters dear to both Korean and Chinese literati, from the moon and gentle breezes to flowing streams and fishing to music, immortals, and eternal life. Among other possibilities, the paintings might be generic landscapes, they might be landscapes of the four seasons, or they might be four of the Eight Views of Xiaoxiang 瀟湘八景, pronounced Xiaoxiang Bajing in Chinese and Sosang Palgyeong 소상팔경 in Korean. Part of a long poetic and artistic legacy and popular among both Chinese and Korean painters, the theme depicts scenes of the Xiaoxiang region in China’s Hunan province 湖南省.
The painting on the best Korean blue-and-white porcelains, as exemplified by the landscapes on this jar, closely approximates that on paper and silk, following a tradition begun already in the fifteenth century. These paintings, for example, resonate with landscapes done by the famous eighteenth-century, Korean master Jeong Seon 謙齋 鄭敾 (1676–1759), with echoes of the styles of such Chinese artists as Shen Zhou 沈周 (1427–1509) and Wang Hui 王翬 (1632–1717). In particular, the landscapes on this jar recall such paintings by Jeong Seon as the Saseongjeong Pavilion 四仙亭, a leaf in an album of views of Mt. Geumgang 金剛山 (in Kangwondo province 江原道 in present-day North Korea) in the collection of the National Museum of Korea, Seoul 서울 國立中央博物館 (museum no. Deoksu 903-3).[i] The paintings on this jar also relate to several Jeong Seon landscapes in the collection of the Kansong Museum of Art, Seoul 서울 澗松美術館, including the Apgujeong Pavilion[ii] 狎鷗亭 and the Gwuiraejeong Pavilion[iii] 歸來亭.
Jars of such form are usually termed ho 壺 in Korean but are occasionally called jun 樽 as well, the characters pronounced hu and zun respectively in Chinese. Although this jar shape is sometimes referred to as a “moon jar”—dal hangari 달 항아리 in Korean—that name technically should be reserved for large round jars whose globular shape and unembellished white surfaces suggest a bright full moon.
With its bulging shoulders, constricted waist, and strong S-profile, this jar’s form finds distant inspiration in celadon-glazed maebyeong 梅瓶 bottles created in Korea during the Goryeo dynasty 高麗時代 (918–1392). The maebyeong form persisted into Korea’s Joseon dynasty, giving rise to jars of this type. Dated by inscription to 1489, a monumental blue-and-white porcelain jar with pine and bamboo décor in the collection of Dongguk University Museum, Seoul[iv] 서울 東國大學校博物館 (museum no. 동국대 797 / Dongguk Dae 797) 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 in order to accommodate the jar’s wider mouth. As evinced by a porcelain jar embellished with a branch of fruiting grapevine painted in underglaze iron brown, the jar now in the collection of Ewha Womans University Museum, Seoul[v] 서울 梨花女子大學校博物館, early eighteenth-century potters gave the jar form the robust interpretation that would continue through the end of the dynastic era. 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.
Korean potters began to produce blue-and-white ware 青花瓷器—i.e., porcelain with designs painted in underglaze cobalt blue—as early as the fifteenth century, inspired by Chinese porcelains of the early Ming period 明朝 (1368–1644). Many extant Korean porcelains from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries feature designs painted in underglaze iron brown, but blue-and-white ware appeared in quantity again in the late seventeenth century and would dominate the later Korean ceramic tradition.
This jar was likely made at the Bunwon kilns 分院, where the finest Korean porcelain was produced during the Joseon dynasty. Located in Bunwon-ri, near Gwangju, in Gyeonggi province 京畿道廣州市分院里, and about thirty-five kilometers to the southeast of Seoul, the kilns had a long and distinguished history stretching back to the mid-1460s, when they were established to produce porcelains for the royal court. In 1752 the official kilns settled at their final location at Bunwon-ri where they continued to function as the official court kilns until their privatization in 1883. Several different grades of porcelains were manufactured there, including those for the royal court as well as ones for various central-government offices and also for wealthy private patrons.
The cobalt-blue of the best Chinese porcelains ranges from dark royal to navy blue, but that of the finest Korean porcelains wares typically is a pale, almost silvery blue, as evinced by the designs painted on this jar. The decorative schemes on Chinese wares generally are continuous, stretching uninterrupted all ’round the vessel; by contrast, the decoration on Korean porcelains often is discontinuous, arranged in discrete design units, as witnessed by this jar’s individual roundels. The Korean wares’ lack of borders—or, if used, very simple borders, such as this jar’s ruyi-shaped cloud collar 如意雲肩 encircling the top of the shoulder—stands in marked contrast to the elaborate upper and lower borders characteristic of Chinese wares.
Although a few large Joseon blue-and-white jars include an abbreviated landscape as a setting for animals or human figures in the foreground, landscape decoration as the principal subject matter is exceptionally rare.[vi] An eighteenth-century globular jar with landscape roundels in a Japanese collection is closest in style to the present jar.[vii] Each jar sports four landscape roundels painted in similar style, and each has a ruyi cloud collar at the base of the neck. The only significant differences are that the present jar features an inscribed poem and includes an abbreviated cloud collar border below the landscape roundels. The two jars’ visual and stylistic similarity argues for an eighteenth-century date of manufacture for the present jar.
Another famous jar, formerly owned by Park Byŏng-rae 朴秉來 (1903–1974; also spelled Pak Byeongrae) and now in the collection of the National Museum of Korea, Seoul, boasts two landscapes, each set in an ogival panel, the jar with a ruyi cloud collar at the top of the shoulder and an emphatic band of rising, stylized lotus petals above the jar’s constricted base.[viii] A clump of bamboo appears between the two ogival panels on one side and an old, weathered branch of blossoming plum appears between them on the other side. The two landscapes show kinship to those on the present jar; even so, the compositions on the National Museum jar are more open, including more water and sky than land. After the official kilns settled at their final location at Bunwon-ri in 1752, the potters who decorated the porcelain jars included ample unembellished white areas in their landscape designs, which we read as water and sky, pointing to a late eighteenth-century date for the National Museum jar.
Its bold form, innovative design, excellent potting, vibrant brushwork, and silvery hued cobalt blue make this an exemplary eighteenth-century blue-and-white jar, while its virtually unique combination of fine calligraphy and exquisite painting marks it as a one-of-a-kind work. The rarity, importance, superb quality, and fine condition elevate this magnificent jar to the rank of major masterpiece of Joseon blue-and-white porcelain.
Robert D. Mowry 毛瑞
Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art Emeritus,
Harvard Art Museums, and
Senior Consultant, Christie’s
[i] See: https://www.museum.go.kr/site/eng/relic/represent/view?relicId=991
[ii] See: https://kansong.org/foundation/index.do?menu_id=00004389&menu_link=%2Ffront%2Fclctn%2FdetailCollectionFront.do&clctn_id=CLCTN_00000065&clctn_dcd=ART_00025_02&searchCondition6=&pageUnitF=12&searchKeyword=&pageIndex=8
[iii] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansong_Art_Museum#/media/File:Jeong_Seon-Guirae.jeong.jpg
[iv] Korean National Treasure no. 176 / 韓國國寶第176號; see: National Museum of Korea, ed. [韓國國立中央博物館編輯], In Blue and White: Porcelain of the Joseon Dynasty (Seoul: National Museum of Korea), 2015, p. 14, no. 3; also see: https://www.emuseum.go.kr/detail?relicId=PS0100501100100079700000
[v] Korean National Treasure no. 107 / 韓國國寶第107號; see Carolyn Kyongshin Koh Choo 高慶信, Traditional Korean Ceramics: A Look by a Scientist (Seoul: Designnanoom), 2016, pp. 218-219, Figs. 10-15a and 10-15b; also see: https://cms.ewha.ac.kr/user/indexSub.action?codyMenuSeq=3006709&siteId=museumeng&menuUIType=top&dum=dum&boardId=3006558&page=1&command=albumView&boardSeq=3075842&chkBoxSeq=&categoryDepth=
[vi] Blue-and-white jars with abbreviated landscapes include the jar with decoration of Three Worthies Playing Weiqi that sold at Christie's, New York, on 22 September 2020 (Lot 251) and the famous Ataka Collection 安宅藏 jar with tiger and magpie decoration in the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka 大阪市立東洋陶磁美術館 (museum no. 00139); see: https://apisites.jmapps.ne.jp/mocoor/en/collection/1038?kwd_and_or=and&f50=1&list_type=LLC&list_count=10&title_query=yes&page=1&sort_field=&sort_type=asc
[vii] See: Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, ed., Blue and White of the Latter Yi Dynasty, Korea (Osaka: Museum of Oriental Ceramics), Korean Ceramics series 14, 1989, p 10, no. 27 / 大阪市立東洋陶磁美術館編, 《李朝後期染付》 (大阪: 大阪市立東洋陶磁美術館), 朝鮮陶磁シリーズ, 14, 1989年, 頁10, 圖27; also see: Rhee Byung-chang, Masterpieces of Korean Art (Tokyo: Rhee Byung-chang; distributed by University of Tokyo Press), 1978, pp. 196-197, no. 205 / 李秉昌著, 《韓国美術蒐選》 (東京: 李秉昌; 東京大學出版社發行), 1978年, 頁196-197, 圖205.
[viii] See: Rhee Byung-chang, Masterpieces of Korean Art (Tokyo: Rhee Byung-chang; distributed by University of Tokyo Press), 1978, pp. 198-199, no. 206 / 李秉昌著, 《韓国美術蒐選》 (東京: 李秉昌; 東京大學出版社發行), 1978年, 頁198-199, 圖206.