Bowl with Inlaid Waterfowl, Willow, and Reed Design (1300s): Art, History and Details

Bowl with Inlaid Waterfowl, Willow, and Reed Design (1300s) 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 leisure culture in Korea. 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 inlaid image of ducks under willow trees on the inner wall of this tea bowl may have made the moment of drinking tea much enjoyable.

Object facts

• Title: Bowl with Inlaid Waterfowl, Willow, and Reed Design
• Date: 1300s
• Culture: Korea, Goryeo dynasty (918–1392)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: celadon with inlaid design
• Dimensions: Diameter of mouth: 19.7 cm (7 3/4 in.); Overall: 9.1 cm (3 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1918.458

A detail from the museum

This bowl with a lightly bent inward rim possibly takes the shape of an alms bowl by Buddhist monks.

Collection credit

Gift of John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Yi, Jong-min. "The New Trends on the latter 14th Century's Inlaid Celadon of Koryŏ Dynasty [14世紀後半高麗象嵌靑磁의新傾向]." Misulsahak yeongu 201 (March 1994): 5-40.
• Goryeo Dynasty: Korea's Age of Enlightenment, 918-1392. San Francisco: Asian Art Museum, 2003.
• Lee, Young-hee. "The Study on Techniques and their Interrelations among Craft Arts of the Goryeo Dynasty [고려시대 공예기법 연구 상호관련성을 중심으로]." Misulsa hakbo 22 (2004): 133-170.

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.