JOSEON DYNASTY (17TH CENTURY)

Korean potters began to produce blue-and-white ware as early as the fifteenth century. Most extant Korean porcelains from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries feature designs painted in underglaze iron brown, but blue-and-white ware appeared in quantity again in the late seventeenth century and would dominate the later Korean ceramic tradition.
Seventeenth- and early to mid-eighteenth-century blue-and-white wares typically sport quiet floral and bird designs of the type portrayed on this bottle. Often termed orchids, blossoming plants of the type seen here more likely are dianthus, commonly known in English as pinks.
The cobalt-blue of the best Chinese porcelains ranges from dark royal to navy blue, but that of the finest Korean porcelains wares typically is a pale, almost silvery, blue, as evinced by designs on this bottle. The decoration on Korean porcelains often is discontinuous, with discrete designs on the front and back. In addition, from the fifteenth century onward, the painting on the best Korean porcelains closely approximates that on paper and silk.
Asakawa Noritake, the author of the book Richo no Toji, remarks that the painting on this bottle may have been executed by Kim Myeong-guk (1600-?), one of the most versatile and accomplished court painters of the Joseon dynasty.