Bowl with Incised Parrot Design (1100s–1200s): Art, History and Details

Bowl with Incised Parrot Design (1100s–1200s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A wide bowl like this example was especially suitable for drinking powdered tea shaved from a compressed tea cake, the most commonly enjoyed type during the Goryeo period. The image of flying parrots incised on the inner wall of this tea bowl must have made the moment of drinking tea more enjoyable and even magical.

Object facts

• Title: Bowl with Incised Parrot Design
• Date: 1100s–1200s
• Culture: Korea, Goryeo dynasty (918–1392)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: celadon ware with incised decoration
• Dimensions: Diameter of mouth: 10.9 cm (4 5/16 in.); Overall: 6 cm (2 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1918.482

A detail from the museum

As early as the seventh century, the practice of drinking tea and wine became an important part of elite leisure culture in Korea.

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.
• Sŏn, Sŭng-hye. The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2011.
• Korean Celadons, the Best under Heaven [천하제일 비색청자]. Seoul : National Museum of Korea, 2012.

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.