Bowl
Maker
Unknown Artist
Date17th century
MediumGlazed stoneware (K: buncheong) with partial underglaze slip-painted decoration (J: Irabo type)
DimensionsOverall (irregular, max dim.): 2 7/8 × 6 1/8 in. (7.3 × 15.6 cm)
Credit LineUniversity Transfer, Gift of Mrs. Chauncey J. Blair, 1916
Collections
Object number1967.115.451
Status
Not on viewAll classes of Joseon society, from king and court to commoner, used the robust glazed stoneware called buncheong. This Korean ware appeared in the 14th century, and its production seems to have ended at the close of the 17th century, except for bowls made expressly for export to Japan. The irregular shapes, rough clay surfaces, and imperfections of glaze give this pottery an artless quality that Japanese masters of the Tea Ceremony revered, as they commissioned special orders of buncheong bowls directly from potteries in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula centered around the port city of Busan. Thus the Japanese elevated buncheong to a status far beyond anything it had enjoyed in its own country. For Korean royals, aristocracy, and peasants it served as everyday utilitarian pottery, but for Japanese tea-masters these bowls embodied a high aesthetic ideal. Because thin glazes highlighted the coarseness of the clay used in such rough-textured buncheong bowls, Japanese connoisseurs called this type of tea ware Irabo, from the Japanese term ira-ira, meaning “upset” or “annoyed.”
