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

Jar with Stamped 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 small jar may have been used as a container for powdered tea among Japanese tea drinkers. Possibly produced in one of the kilns established by the trading office (Waegwan) in Busan, southern Gyeongsang province, it was sold to Japanese tea bowl collectors. According to a historical record dated to 1641, one trading boat shipped more than 14,000 tea bowls to Japan.

Object facts

• Title: Jar with Stamped Decoration
• Date: 1400s
• Culture: Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: stoneware with incised design, white slip, and overglaze
• Dimensions: Outer diameter: 14 cm (5 1/2 in.); Overall: 9.1 cm (3 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1921.678

A detail from the museum

This little jar was part of the gift donated by John L. Severance (1863–1936). He and his father Louis H. Severance (1838–1913) collected Korean ceramics of the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392) from a number of pioneering medical missionaries as a way to foster their activities in Korea, and later donated them to the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Collection credit

Gift of John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Park, Kyung-ja and Park Hyeong-soon. “Evolution of the Buncheong Wares in the Early Joseon Period as the White Porcelain Takes over the Taxation Supply [조선 전기 공납용 백자제작에 따른 분청사기 양식변화].” Misul sahak (2010): 291–321.
• Treasures from Korea: Arts and Culture of the Joseon Dynasty, 1392-1910. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2014.
• 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.