Page 68 - Symbols_of_Identity_Korean_Ceramics_from the Chang Collection

his bowl with flared lip is decorated with a central field
Tconsisting of eight stamped chrysanthemum flowers
followed by a register of concentric rings, and a wide band
of the rope curtain pattern, ending with another register of
concentric rings near the lip. The outside of the bowl is sim-
ply brushed with slip, ending about two-thirds of the way
down, leaving the area above the foot unslipped. The base
and footrim are unglazed. The inside of the bowl appears to
have been lightly brushed with slip again after the inlaying
process was already completed, possibly after the brush was
almost dry from coating the outside of the bowl. Five scars
45. caused by clay firing pads are visible inside the bowl.
Bowl
15th century, Joseon This bowl has designs typical of fifteenth-century buncheong
TL results: fired between 400 & 700 years ago wares. The scars inside this bowl indicate it was fired in a
Stoneware with inlaid designs under buncheong glaze stack with other bowls resting inside one another, separated
H: 6.9 cm, W: 18 cm by clay pads on the footrims. Although this left more scars
on the finished product, a greater number of vessels could
be fired at one time than if individual ceramics were placed
inside protective saggars during firing. Saggars are ceramic
containers used to protect pottery from flame, smoke, and
flying debris inside the kiln.

Buncheong ware tea bowls were held in high esteem by Japa-
nese tea masters by the middle of the sixteenth century.
There was even a kiln producing buncheong wares and coarse
white porcelain in Busan (Pusan), operated by the Japanese
between 1639 and 1737, which made ceramics according to
Japanese specifications. 1

1 Ikutaro Itoh, “Korean Ceramics of the Koryŏ and Chosŏn Dynasties,” in Korean Ceramics from the
Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, ed. Judith G. Smith (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of
Art, 2000), 28-29.
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