Cer, Korea, Choson, blue and white and red

The jar, which is covered with a crazed glaze, is decorated with red-outlined peonies growing on blue stems from a pot. Its profile is 18th century: narrow-based, generous shouldered.
Colour: Blue, red and white

This tall jar has an upright rim and bulging shoulders which narrow towards the base. The front and back are painted in underglaze cobalt blue with bloomed peonies planted in a flowerpot. The designs are charmingly painted in underglaze cobalt blue and in underglaze copper red. The glaze has a bluish-white tint, and impurities have permeated through the crackles. The foot bears sand spur marks, and this white porcelain jar is estimated to have been produced at a kiln site in Bunwon-ri, Gwangju, in the early 19th century. This is a rare example of the peonies in a flowerpot design painted using a combinaton of underglaze cobalt blue and underglaze copper red.

This 18th-century jar is covered with a crazed glaze and is decorated with red-outlined peonies growing on blue stems from a pot. In Korea, blue-and-white porcelains covered with a nearly translucent glaze and fired at high temperatures of approximately 1300 degrees Celsius were first made in the 15th century. Cobalt-blue pigment was used to paint designs on the white porcelain, then the piece was glazed and finally fired.

Underglaze iron oxide was used for creating designs on celadons of the Koryo dynasty (918-1392), but it became especially popular in the 17th century. Underglaze copper-red decoration was first developed in the 12th century, but was virtually unused until the 18th century.

C.81-1937