AN IRON AND SLIP-DECORATED INCISED PUNCH'ONG BOTTLE

Details

AN IRON AND SLIP-DECORATED INCISED PUNCH'ONG BOTTLE
choson dynasty (15th-16th century)

Standing on a high circular foot with well-proportioned ovoid body rising to a cylindrical neck and wide, flared mouth, painted in underglaze iron-brown with two elongated fish with fan-shaped tails, scalloped fins and oval heads, the scales articulated by scrolling lines, also decorated with incised lines which reveal the greyish clay of the bottle, two parallel lines above the foot, one line below and one line above, framing the two fish, two lines around the neck and a series of parallel lines radiating from the interior of the mouth, the body also coated with white slip and covered by a transparent glaze of celadon hue, distinct in one droplet at the base of the neck and on the scales of one fish and in several rivulets, with a high lustre and all-over dense crackle--11½in. (29.3cm.) high

Lot Essay

PUBLISHED
Byung-chang Rhee, Masterpieces of Korean Art--Yi Ceramics (Tokyo: privately published, 1978), no. 41

For other similarly decorated bottles see G. St. G. Gompertz, Korean Pottery & Porcelain of the Yi Period (London: Faber and Faber, 1968), nos. 31a, 33; The World's Great Collections, Oriental Ceramics, Vol. 2, National Museum of Seoul, Sunu Choi, intro. (Tokyo, New York and San Francisco: Kodansha International Ltd., 1982), pl. 46; René-Yvon Lefebre d'Argencé, general ed., 5000 Years of Korean Art, exh. cat. (1979), no. 180; Masterpieces of Punchong Ware from the Ho-Am Art Museum (Seoul: Ho-Am Art Gallery, 1993), pl. 114