Bulb Bowl (early 1400s): Art, History and Details

Bulb Bowl (early 1400s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Numbered Jun ware is inscribed with a number on its bottom—in this case number "two"—and is thought to have been made initially for the early Ming imperial court. The number indicates size, with "one" being the largest and "ten" being the smallest. Another characteristic is the "earthworm trail" left on the glaze surface, seen on the interior of this bulb bowl, where the opalescent blue glaze has cracked in several places during firing. The rich purplish tone on the exterior is the result of using copper pigment in the glaze.

Object facts

• Title: Bulb Bowl
• Date: early 1400s
• Culture: China, Henan Province, Yuxian, Juntai, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: porcelaneous stoneware, numbered Jun ware
• Dimensions: Diameter: 23.5 cm (9 1/4 in.); Overall: 8 cm (3 1/8 in.)
• Collection: China - Yuan Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1957.33

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Lee, Sherman E. A History of Far Eastern Art. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1964.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

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.