Bowl with Stamped Floral Decoration (1400s): Art, History and Details

Bowl with Stamped Floral Decoration (1400s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This type of wide-mouthed bowl was used every day in Korea, not exclusively for tea drinking. But when it was introduced to Japan around the early 16th century, its imperfect appearance evoking the aesthetics of wabi-sabi caused it to be repurposed as a tea bowl. Korean tea bowls were circulated as an item of foreign luxury among Japanese military elites. Many Korean potters were abducted to japan during the Japanese invasions (1592–98) and some settled down in Japan, particularly in the Saga prefecture in Kyushu. A Japanese tea bowl such as 1983.158 in the CMA collection is one example possibly created by the descendants of dislocated Korean potters.

Object facts

• Title: Bowl with Stamped Floral Decoration
• Date: 1400s
• Culture: Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: glazed ceramic
• Dimensions: Overall: 8.8 cm (3 7/16 in.)
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1988.1057

A detail from the museum

This type of humble tea bowl was highly praised among Japanese collectors for its imperfect beauty.

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. H. R. Cash, M.D.

Further reading listed by the museum

• Jeong, Dong-ju. From Joseon Rice Bowl to Yido Tea Bowl [조선 막사발과 이도다완]. Paju: Hangil ateu, 2012.
• Hur, Nam-lin. “Korean Tea Bowls (Kōrai Chawan) and Japanese Wabicha: A Story of Acculturation in Premodern Northeast Asia.” Korean Studies 39 (2015): 1–22.
• Buncheong Ware [분청사기]. Seoul: Ehwa Woman’s Universtiry Museum, 2019.

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.