Bottle with Incised and Sgraffito Fish Design (1400s–1500s): Art, History and Details

Bottle with Incised and Sgraffito Fish Design (1400s–1500s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This whimsical bottle is classified as Buncheong 분청 (literally, powdered green). Flourishing during the 1400s–1500s, Buncheong indicates pottery with iron-rich clay decorated with white slip. After firing, the color of the clay body usually became greenish-gray due to its high iron content. Korean artists tried to emulate the white porcelain wares of the Chinese Ming period, although the result was not the same. On the surface coated with white slip, the image of a smiling fish is carved in bold lines, a technique distinctive to Jeolla province, a southwest region of the Korean peninsula.

Object facts

• Title: Bottle with Incised and Sgraffito Fish Design
• Date: 1400s–1500s
• Culture: Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: stoneware with incised design (Buncheong ware)
• Dimensions: Outer diameter: 17 cm (6 11/16 in.); Overall: 30.6 cm (12 1/16 in.)
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1962.153

A detail from the museum

The fish depicted here seems to be a small yellow croaker, abundant off the southwest coast of the Korean peninsula.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.