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Lot Essay
Used as storage vessels or as vases for monumental floral displays at banquets and ceremonies, tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted jars were popular in Korea from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. Some feature landscape decoration, while others sport floral designs, and yet others boast tigers, haetae 獬豸, or other auspicious beasts; the rarest and most desirable, however, feature majestic striding dragons and are known as yongjun 龍樽 (literally, “dragon jars”). A few such dragon jars display decoration brushed in underglaze iron brown, but most, like the charming example here, are painted in underglaze cobalt blue. Made in the eighteenth century, this jar, which stands only 27 cm in height, ranks amongst the smallest of such dragon jars, giving it a very special status, as most such jars measure more than 40 cm in height.
The jar’s form doubtless finds distant inspiration in meiping 每瓶 bottles created in China during the Northern Song period (960–1127). Despite the poetic name meaning “plum vase,” meiping vessels were not vases for the display of cut branches of blossoming plum but were elegant storage bottles for wine and other liquids, though later collectors admittedly did sometimes press them into service as vases on special occasions, particularly when inviting learned friends of refined taste. By the late eleventh century, both Chinese and Korean meiping vessels—the name pronounced as maebyeong in Korean—had assumed the stately form we admire today. Korean potters of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, during the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), gave the form its classic interpretation, with broad shoulders, narrow waist and lightly flaring foot. In fact, the graceful Goryeo interpretation of the maebyeong echoes in meiping vessels created in China from the fifteenth century onward, during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties.
Crafted in both porcelain and buncheong stoneware 粉靑沙器, the maebyeong form persisted into the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), following its own evolutionary path. By the late fifteenth century, the vessel changed from slender-necked bottle into wide-mouthed jar; in the transformation from bottle to jar, came both an increase in size and a change in proportions, the shoulder becoming ever broader, probably to accommodate the wider mouth. Seventeenth-century potters gave the jar form the robust interpretation that would continue through the end of the dynastic era and that we find so familiar today. Unique to Korea, jars with bulging shoulders and gently curved side walls that descend to a constricted base were ubiquitous during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century examples have a short, vertical neck and an exaggerated profile, with massive shoulders and constricted waist; of related form, those from the eighteenth century, such as this jar, display a graceful profile that incorporates a gentle S-curve, and they have a slightly higher neck, a flat-cut foot, and a countersunk base. Jars from the nineteenth century, by contrast, exhibit a more mannered profile with narrower shoulders, an attenuated body, a beveled foot and a tall, cylindrical neck.
In the East Asian dualistic yin-yang 陰陽 interpretation of the universe, the dragon 龍 symbolizes the yang 陽, or male, principle, while the phoenix 鳳凰 represents the yin 陰, or female, principle. Associated with water, the auspicious dragon is typically paired with clouds, mist or rolling waves. Borrowed from the repertory of Buddhist art, the jewel—often termed a pearl and typically shown with tongues of flame—symbolizes transcendent wisdom. Developed in China but adopted by the Koreans, the motif of striding dragon and flaming jewel 龍珠纹 thus symbolizes the pursuit of wisdom, the motif likely first occurring in China in the Tang dynasty (618–907) and adopted in Korea in the Goryeo period. By the fifteenth century, the dragon, particularly the five-clawed dragon, had further come to symbolize the emperor in China and the king in Korea, just as the phoenix had come to emblemize the empress or queen.
As seen on this well-painted jar, rising, stylized lotus petals typically frame the lower edge of the so-called dragon-and-pearl composition, while descending lappets border its top and a stylized floral scroll encircles the neck. Eighteenth-century examples tend to be meticulously painted—note the careful articulation of the dragon’s scales and the precise description of its mane and horns—while those from the nineteenth century characteristically show more whimsical compositions and spontaneous brushwork.
Its bold form, vibrant brushwork, and silvery hued cobalt blue in light and dark tones make this an exemplary eighteenth-century dragon jar, while its small size places it into a virtual one-of-a-kind category.
Robert D. Mowry 毛瑞
Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art Emeritus
Harvard Art Museums, and
Senior Consultant, Christie’s
The jar’s form doubtless finds distant inspiration in meiping 每瓶 bottles created in China during the Northern Song period (960–1127). Despite the poetic name meaning “plum vase,” meiping vessels were not vases for the display of cut branches of blossoming plum but were elegant storage bottles for wine and other liquids, though later collectors admittedly did sometimes press them into service as vases on special occasions, particularly when inviting learned friends of refined taste. By the late eleventh century, both Chinese and Korean meiping vessels—the name pronounced as maebyeong in Korean—had assumed the stately form we admire today. Korean potters of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, during the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), gave the form its classic interpretation, with broad shoulders, narrow waist and lightly flaring foot. In fact, the graceful Goryeo interpretation of the maebyeong echoes in meiping vessels created in China from the fifteenth century onward, during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties.
Crafted in both porcelain and buncheong stoneware 粉靑沙器, the maebyeong form persisted into the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), following its own evolutionary path. By the late fifteenth century, the vessel changed from slender-necked bottle into wide-mouthed jar; in the transformation from bottle to jar, came both an increase in size and a change in proportions, the shoulder becoming ever broader, probably to accommodate the wider mouth. Seventeenth-century potters gave the jar form the robust interpretation that would continue through the end of the dynastic era and that we find so familiar today. Unique to Korea, jars with bulging shoulders and gently curved side walls that descend to a constricted base were ubiquitous during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century examples have a short, vertical neck and an exaggerated profile, with massive shoulders and constricted waist; of related form, those from the eighteenth century, such as this jar, display a graceful profile that incorporates a gentle S-curve, and they have a slightly higher neck, a flat-cut foot, and a countersunk base. Jars from the nineteenth century, by contrast, exhibit a more mannered profile with narrower shoulders, an attenuated body, a beveled foot and a tall, cylindrical neck.
In the East Asian dualistic yin-yang 陰陽 interpretation of the universe, the dragon 龍 symbolizes the yang 陽, or male, principle, while the phoenix 鳳凰 represents the yin 陰, or female, principle. Associated with water, the auspicious dragon is typically paired with clouds, mist or rolling waves. Borrowed from the repertory of Buddhist art, the jewel—often termed a pearl and typically shown with tongues of flame—symbolizes transcendent wisdom. Developed in China but adopted by the Koreans, the motif of striding dragon and flaming jewel 龍珠纹 thus symbolizes the pursuit of wisdom, the motif likely first occurring in China in the Tang dynasty (618–907) and adopted in Korea in the Goryeo period. By the fifteenth century, the dragon, particularly the five-clawed dragon, had further come to symbolize the emperor in China and the king in Korea, just as the phoenix had come to emblemize the empress or queen.
As seen on this well-painted jar, rising, stylized lotus petals typically frame the lower edge of the so-called dragon-and-pearl composition, while descending lappets border its top and a stylized floral scroll encircles the neck. Eighteenth-century examples tend to be meticulously painted—note the careful articulation of the dragon’s scales and the precise description of its mane and horns—while those from the nineteenth century characteristically show more whimsical compositions and spontaneous brushwork.
Its bold form, vibrant brushwork, and silvery hued cobalt blue in light and dark tones make this an exemplary eighteenth-century dragon jar, while its small size places it into a virtual one-of-a-kind category.
Robert D. Mowry 毛瑞
Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art Emeritus
Harvard Art Museums, and
Senior Consultant, Christie’s