Vase with Inlaid Lotus, Plum, and Bamboo Design (1300s): Art, History and Details

Vase with Inlaid Lotus, Plum, and Bamboo Design (1300s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Flattened-shaped jars like this one started to appear around the late 1200s. Each of the flattened sides is decorated with an image of a lotus flower pond, enclosed in a lobed panel. The protruding sides, on the other hand, depict an image of bamboo trees and plum blossoms. This particular example seems to have been produced in the late 1300s, when the overall quality of techniques involved in making celadon works sharply deteriorated. In contrast to translucent greenish blue celadon works of the 1100s, this flask has a gray greenish glaze due to less refined clay. Furthermore, its rather roughly executed inlaid design shows a clear sign of decline in craftsmanship. Nevertheless, less attention to technical details gave way to a freer style pottery called buncheong in the succeeding centuries.

Object facts

• Title: Vase with Inlaid Lotus, Plum, and Bamboo Design
• Date: 1300s
• Culture: Korea, Goryeo dynasty (918–1392)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: celadon with inlaid design
• Dimensions: Overall: 30.3 cm (11 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1918.471

A detail from the museum

The decor that adorns this flask was done in the inlay technique, a method that fills engraved designs with either white or black soil.

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]." Korean Journal of Art History vol. 3 (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.