Bowl and Saucer with Incised Lotus and Peony Design (1100s): Art, History and Details

Bowl and Saucer with Incised Lotus and Peony Design (1100s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

As early as the seventh century, the practice of drinking tea and wine became an important part of elite culture in Korea. Elites of the Goryeo period commissioned a variety of types of utensils and vessels including this saucer paired with a large bowl, to make their drinking experience more exciting.

Object facts

• Title: Bowl and Saucer with Incised Lotus and Peony Design
• Date: 1100s
• Culture: Korea, Goryeo dynasty (918–1392)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: pottery
• Dimensions: Diameter: 17.9 cm (7 1/16 in.); Overall: 9 cm (3 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1918.455

A detail from the museum

This type of celadon bowl was modeled after Ru ware of northern China. Xu Jing (1091-1153), the Chinese official who visited Korea in 1123, called the Korean celadon ware as the “new kiln ware of Ru-zhou.”

Collection credit

Gift of John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Goryeo Dynasty: Korea's Age of Enlightenment, 918-1392. San Francisco: Asian Art Museum, 2003.
• Jang, Nam-won. "The Tea and Celadons during the Goryeo Dynasty : Considering the Celadon Tea Utensils [고려시대 茶文化와 靑瓷]." Misulsa nondan (2007): 129-162.
• A Chinese traveler in medieval Korea : Xu Jing's illustrated account of the Xuanhe embassy to Koryo. Translated by Sem Vermeersch. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2016.

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.