Page 228 - Christies Japanese and Korean Art Sept 22 2020 NYC

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A CELADON STONEWARE INCISED MAEBYONG
GORYEO DYNASTY (12TH-13TH CENTURY)
The elegant-shaped body with evenly rounded shoulders above the
tapered body, with a flat foot enclosing a recessed base, the body
incised with three long stalks of flowering lotus and incised below the
shoulders and foot rims with bands of leaves and petals, covered by a
rich celadon glaze with high sheen and dense crackle
12 in. (30.4 cm.) high
$30,000-40,000

With its satisfying shape, harmonious decoration, and exquisitely
colored celadon glaze, this maebyeong bottle is compellingly
beautiful. Korea’s best-known ceramics, the celadon wares, were
produced during the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), an era of supreme
artistic refinement. Plain vessels and ones with molded, incised, or
carved decoration typify eleventh- and early twelfth-century Korean
wares, while ones with designs inlaid in black and white slips, such
as this superb maebyeong bottle, epitomize those from the mid-
twelfth through the fourteen centuries.

Known in Chinese as meiping and in Korean as maebyeong—the
Korean pronunciation of the Chinese name—such bottles had
appeared in China by the tenth century and had been adopted in
Korea by the eleventh. Both Chinese and Korean examples from
the eleventh century have broad shoulders and a narrow base but,
due to their slightly convex sides, appear a bit stocky; by contrast,
those from the mid-twelfth century onward are slightly attenuated
and have bulging shoulders, a constricted waist, and lightly flaring
foot. Despite the poetic name meaning “plum vase,” maebyeong
vessels were not vases for the display of cut branches of blossoming
plum; rather, like the related Chinese meiping vessels, they were
elegant storage bottles for wine and other liquids, though later
collectors admittedly did sometimes press them into service as vases
on special occasions, particularly when inviting learned friends of
refined taste.
For similar maebyong see Soontaek Choi-Bae, Seladon Keramic der
Koryo-Dynastie 918-1392 /Celadon Wares of the Koryo Period 918-1392
(Koln: Museum fur Ostasiatische Kunst, 1984), cover illustration
and no. 15; Korai meipin ten / Exhibition of Mei-Ping Vase Koryo
Dynasty, Korea (Osaka: Museum of Oriental Ceramics, 1985), no.
2.; Korai seiji e no izanai / An Introduction to Koryo Celadon (Osaka:
Museum of Oriental Ceramics, 1992), pl. 21.