Lot 40
40
AN OCTAGONAL BLUE AND WHITE WATER DROPPER

Details
AN OCTAGONAL BLUE AND WHITE WATER DROPPER
CHOSON DYNASTY (2ND HALF 18TH CENTURY)

The large, eight-sided water dropper set on a high ring foot inset from the straight sides of the vessel, with a flat top which slants slightly toward the center, the spout moulded in the form of a bushy-tailed squirrel climbing up the shoulder of the water dropper and placing the front right paw on the rim; painted on the sides in underglaze blue with a stand of bamboo and a thick branch of plum with two slender shoots and painted on the top with a pavilion on a cliff overlooking moored boats and a single returning boat, one of the Eight Views of the Hsiao-Hsiang, within an octagonal line border, the outside of the recessed ring foot encircled by a single underglaze blue line-- 4 1/2 in. (11.4 cm.) diameter, 3 1/8 in. (7.8 cm.) high, base damaged and restored, hairline side cracks, firing flaw near hole on top and several firing fissures on sides

Lot Essay

An octagonal blue and white water dropper decorated on the top with a very similar landscape is illustrated in Byung-chang Rhee, Masterpieces of Korean Art- Yi Ceramics, no. 467; a large blue and white jar in the collection of the National Museum of Korea painted with an ogival panel of virtually identical landscape, identified as one of the Eight Views of the Hsiao-Hsiang, is illustrated in the same work, plate 206, color; a rectangular blue and white bottle moulded with two similar squirrel form handles and the same landscape panel is illustrated in Korean blue and white wares, 18th Century porcelain (Samsung Foundation of Art and Culture, Seoul, 1987), no. 15