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Lot Essay
UNIQUELY KOREAN:
A Magnificent, Dragon-Emblazoned Jar from Eighteenth-century Korea
Robert D. Mowry
Used as storage vessels and occasionally as vases for monumental floral displays at royal banquets and ceremonies, such large, 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; the rarest and most desirable, however, boast majestic striding dragons and are known as yongjun (literally, "dragon jars"). A few dragon jars display decoration brushed in underglaze iron brown, but most, like this magnificent example, are painted in underglaze cobalt blue. Made in the eighteenth century, likely during the first decades of that century, and almost certainly commissioned by the royal court, this jar ranks among the largest and most sumptuous of such dragon jars.
The jar's form doubtless finds distant inspiration in meiping vessels created in China during the Northern Song period (960-1127). Despite the poetic name meaning "plum vase," meiping (Korean, maebyeong) 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. Most such bottles originally claimed a small, bell-shaped cover that protected the contents from dust and evaporation and that aesthetically reversed and complemented the vessel's strong curves. The earliest meiping bottles----the elongated form likely was invented in silver and then imitated in ceramic ware----display bulging sides, the widest point occuring at the midpoint of the belly. By the late eleventh century, both Chinese and Korean vessels had assumed the more stately form that we admire today, a form with broad shoulders and angled side walls that taper to a narrow foot.
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 (fig. 1). 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, the maebyeong form persisted into the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910), following its own evolutionary path. Dated by inscription to 1489, a monumental blue-and-white porcelain maebyeong with pine and bamboo decoration in the collection of Dongguk University Museum, Seoul (National Treasure no. 176), reveals that by the late fifteenth-century the vessel had been transformed from slender-necked bottle into wide-mouthed jar; it further reveals that in the transformation from bottle to jar, such vessels saw both an increase in size and a change in proportions, the shoulders becoming ever broader, probably to accommodate the wider mouth. As evinced by a porcelain jar embellished with a branch of fruiting grapevine painted in underglaze iron brown in the collection of Ewha Women's University Museum, Seoul (National Treasure no. 107), 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 (fig. 2). 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 closely related form, those from the second half of the eighteenth century display a less exaggerated profile that incorporates a gentle S-curve, and they have a slightly higher neck. 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 ying-yang interpretation of the universe, the dragon symbolizes the yang, or male, principle, while the phoenix represents the yin, 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 flaming jewel----often termed pearl----symbolizes transcendent wisdom; developed in China but adapted by the Koreans, the motif of striding dragon and flaming jewel thus symbolizes the pursuit of wisdom. By the fifteenth century, the dragon, particularly the five-clawed dragon, had further come to represent the emperor in China and the king in Korea, just as the phoenix has come to emblemize the empress or queen. As seen on this magnificent jar, rising, stylized lotus petals typically frame the lower edge of the so-called dragon-and-pearl composition just as a descending cloud collar borders its top. Eighteenth-century examples tend to be meticulously painted 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 exceptional eighteenth-century dragon jar, while its immense size pushes it to a virtual one-of-a-kind category. Its two dragons and probable royal associations only heighten its appeal.
Robert D. Mowry is Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art and Head of the Department of Asian Art, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard Art Museums
A Magnificent, Dragon-Emblazoned Jar from Eighteenth-century Korea
Robert D. Mowry
Used as storage vessels and occasionally as vases for monumental floral displays at royal banquets and ceremonies, such large, 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; the rarest and most desirable, however, boast majestic striding dragons and are known as yongjun (literally, "dragon jars"). A few dragon jars display decoration brushed in underglaze iron brown, but most, like this magnificent example, are painted in underglaze cobalt blue. Made in the eighteenth century, likely during the first decades of that century, and almost certainly commissioned by the royal court, this jar ranks among the largest and most sumptuous of such dragon jars.
The jar's form doubtless finds distant inspiration in meiping vessels created in China during the Northern Song period (960-1127). Despite the poetic name meaning "plum vase," meiping (Korean, maebyeong) 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. Most such bottles originally claimed a small, bell-shaped cover that protected the contents from dust and evaporation and that aesthetically reversed and complemented the vessel's strong curves. The earliest meiping bottles----the elongated form likely was invented in silver and then imitated in ceramic ware----display bulging sides, the widest point occuring at the midpoint of the belly. By the late eleventh century, both Chinese and Korean vessels had assumed the more stately form that we admire today, a form with broad shoulders and angled side walls that taper to a narrow foot.
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 (fig. 1). 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, the maebyeong form persisted into the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910), following its own evolutionary path. Dated by inscription to 1489, a monumental blue-and-white porcelain maebyeong with pine and bamboo decoration in the collection of Dongguk University Museum, Seoul (National Treasure no. 176), reveals that by the late fifteenth-century the vessel had been transformed from slender-necked bottle into wide-mouthed jar; it further reveals that in the transformation from bottle to jar, such vessels saw both an increase in size and a change in proportions, the shoulders becoming ever broader, probably to accommodate the wider mouth. As evinced by a porcelain jar embellished with a branch of fruiting grapevine painted in underglaze iron brown in the collection of Ewha Women's University Museum, Seoul (National Treasure no. 107), 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 (fig. 2). 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 closely related form, those from the second half of the eighteenth century display a less exaggerated profile that incorporates a gentle S-curve, and they have a slightly higher neck. 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 ying-yang interpretation of the universe, the dragon symbolizes the yang, or male, principle, while the phoenix represents the yin, 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 flaming jewel----often termed pearl----symbolizes transcendent wisdom; developed in China but adapted by the Koreans, the motif of striding dragon and flaming jewel thus symbolizes the pursuit of wisdom. By the fifteenth century, the dragon, particularly the five-clawed dragon, had further come to represent the emperor in China and the king in Korea, just as the phoenix has come to emblemize the empress or queen. As seen on this magnificent jar, rising, stylized lotus petals typically frame the lower edge of the so-called dragon-and-pearl composition just as a descending cloud collar borders its top. Eighteenth-century examples tend to be meticulously painted 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 exceptional eighteenth-century dragon jar, while its immense size pushes it to a virtual one-of-a-kind category. Its two dragons and probable royal associations only heighten its appeal.
Robert D. Mowry is Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art and Head of the Department of Asian Art, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard Art Museums