Page 234 - Christies Japanese and Korean Art Sept 22 2020 NYC

248
A BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN JAR
JOSEON DYNASTY (18-19TH CENTURY)
Of ovoid shape, painted with lotus flowers, pinks and
chrysanthemums and orchids with flying insects, above a double line,
on a grayish white glaze
12 in. (30.4 cm.) high
$200,000-300,000

LITERATURE:
Chosen Kogei Kenkyukai (Korean Craft Research Committee), ed.,
Chosen Kogei Tenrankai zuroku (Illustrated Catalogue of an Exhibition of
Korean Crafts) (Tokyo: Chsen Kogei Kenkykai), 1939-1941, p. 82-1,
no. 268

Popular in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Korea, large The cobalt-blue of the best Chinese porcelains ranges from dark
porcelain jars were used as storage vessels and occasionally as vases royal to navy blue, but that of the finest Korean porcelains wares
for monumental floral displays at banquets and ceremonies. Such typically is a pale, almost silvery or grayish, blue, as evinced by the
jars—usually termed ho 壺 in Korean, the character read hu in designs on this bottle. The decorative schemes on Chinese wares
Chinese—often feature landscape decoration, while others boast generally are continuous, stretching uninterrupted all ’round the
dragons, tigers, haetae 獬豸, or other favored beasts, and yet others vessel; by contrast, the decoration on Korean porcelains often is
sport floral designs or auspicious Chinese characters. Likely made in discontinuous, arranged in discrete design units, as witnessed by
the late eighteenth or nineteenth century, toward the end of Korea’s this jar’s individual vignettes. The Korean wares’ lack of borders—
Joseon dynasty 朝鮮朝 (1392–1910), this jar features four blossoming or, if used, very simple borders—stands in marked contrast to the
plants, each appearing as a discrete vignette and each growing from a elaborate top and bottom borders characteristic of Chinese wares.
small, rocky outcropping set atop the double bowstring-line border In addition, from the fifteenth century onward, the painting on the
that serves as a continuous groundline while also distinguishing the best Korean porcelains closely approximates that on paper and silk.
decorative register from the undecorated area below.
Korean blue-and-white wares from the seventeenth and early
Although many authors characterize blossoming plants of the type eighteenth century typically sport quiet floral designs set on a single,
that emblazon this jar simply as “floral designs”—and Japanese continuous bowstring line, the earth from which the plants grow
scholars often generically categorize them as akikusa 秋草紋, or sometimes subtly indicated by a short row of small dots that either
“autumn grasses”—the plants in fact are meticulously described and, interrupts the bowstring-line border or appears immediately above
as often is the case, are readily identifiable from both flowers and it. The inclusion of the small, rocky outcroppings from which
leaves. They include orchids 蘭花, lotuses 蓮花, dianthus 瞿麦— this jar’s plants grow suggests that the vessel dates to the end of
commonly known in English as pinks —and chrysanthemums 菊 the eighteenth or to the nineteenth century, as do the inclusion of
花. Butterflies and other insects hover over several of the blossoms. insects, the broad brushstrokes and extensive use of cobalt washes
All cultivated in East Asia, those flowering plants frequently appear employed in describing the plants, and the slightly grayish tonality
in Chinese and Korean paintings. Such jars, sparsely but delicately of the cobalt blue. The design vignettes are larger than those of
painted with favored plants and sometimes embellished with standard eighteenth-century jars, just as the individual compositions
auspicious characters, were in Korean literati taste and thus favored are more complex and are somewhat more dynamic in their
by the cultivated elite of the Joseon dynasty. portrayal of the plants—as if the leaves are lightly animated by a
gentle breeze. In addition, this jar’s oval shape stands in contrast
Korean potters began to produce blue-and-white ware 青花瓷 to that of classic jars from the eighteenth century, which have
器—i.e., porcelain with designs painted in underglaze cobalt blue— bulging shoulders and a constricted waist, thus further pointing to
as early as the fifteenth century, in imitation of Chinese porcelains the late eighteenth or nineteenth century as this jar’s likely date of
of the early Ming period 明朝 (1368–1644). Most extant Korean manufacture. Moreover, the expanding profile of this jar’s neck
porcelains from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries feature differs markedly from the strictly vertical necks of earlier jars, just
designs painted in underglaze iron brown, but blue-and-white as the neck is also proportionally taller than those of earlier jars of
ware appeared in quantity again in the late seventeenth century and generally related form.
would dominate the later Korean ceramic tradition.