Square-shaped Bottle with the Scenery of the Han River (1800s): Art, History and Details

Square-shaped Bottle with the Scenery of the Han River (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The depicted scenery of this bottle is the Han River, the principal river crossing the center of Seoul. Since the 1700s, Korean artists began to paint the real landscape of Korea instead of imaginary ones of the Chinese tradition. This blue-and-white porcelain bottle is presumably a water dropper for ink. Each facet was separately made and put together before firing in a kiln. Both the landscape motif and faceted bottle were in vogue in the late 19th century, largely produced to meet the growing demand from the elite class.

Object facts

• Title: Square-shaped Bottle with the Scenery of the Han River
• Date: 1800s
• Culture: Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: porcelain with underglaze cobalt blue decoration
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1986.86

A detail from the museum

The Han River is the principal river crossing the center of Seoul.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Bang, Byungsun. "The Technology of Porcelain Manufacturing in the late Joseon Dynasty [朝鮮後期白磁의製作技術硏究]." Misul sahak yeongu (1997): 67-104
• Kang, Kyeong-sook. History of Korean Ceramics [韓國陶磁史]. Seoul: Yekyong, 2012.
• Treasures from Korea: Arts and Culture of the Joseon Dynasty, 1392-1910. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2014.

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.