GORYEO DYNASTY (12TH CENTURY)

Korea’s best-known ceramics, the celadon wares, were produced during the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), an era of supreme artistic refinement. Vessels with molded, incised, or carved decoration, such as this exquisite ewer, typify twelfth-century Korean wares, while ones with designs inlaid in black and white slips epitomize those of the thirteenth and fourteen centuries. As evinced by this bamboo-shoot-shaped ewer, Goryeo-period clients favored vessels in sculptural form, the forms characteristically suggesting bamboo shoots, lotus blossoms, ripe melons, calabash gourds, and open blossoms. Korean celadon glazes tend to be more transparent and also more bluish green than those of contemporaneous Chinese celadons. The finest Korean celadons rival their Chinese counterparts in terms of both artistic sophistication and technical achievement. Virtually identical ewers, all dated to the twelfth century, appear in the collections of the National Museum of Korea, Seoul (Deoksu-4499-0), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (50.966a-b), Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka (20401), and Victoria and Albert Museum, London (C.527-1918).