Beautiful 13” Signed Modern Post-War Korean “Goryeo Celadon Revival” Pottery/Porcelain Ewer / Wine Pitcher Displaying a Double-Gourd Form, Long Spout & Curvaceous Handle w/ Blue-Green Glaze & Decorated w/ Black & White Flying Cranes & Stylized Clouds

HERE’S A 13” SIGNED ORIGINAL VINTAGE HANDMADE MODERN POST-WAR KOREAN “GORYEO CELADON REVIVAL” POTTERY / PORCELAIN EWER OR WINE PITCHER WITH STOPPER-LID THAT DISPLAYS A DOUBLE-GOURD SHAPED FORM WITH CURVACEOUS HANDLE AND LONG SPOUT COVERED IN THE GORYEO BLUISH-GREEN CELADON GLAZE AND THEN DECORATED WITH BLACK AND OFF-WHITE GLAZES RENDERED AS FLYING CRANES AND CLOUDS!

Please Note: What is commonly referred to as the “Goryeo Celadon Revival” began in post-war Korea during the mid 1950s, reached its first extensive international success during the 1970s and 1980s primarily with Japanese patronage, and today can count on several hundred artists adding to this ceramic legacy. The city of Icheon, located in Gyeonggi, South Korea’s most populous province, is well-known for the celadon pottery produced during the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392). The city’s Ceramics Village, a popular attraction for tourists, has about 80 ceramic studios (there are more than 300 citywide) where artists still work using traditional methods of the region, making decorative and utilitarian celadon wares. Every spring, Icheon hosts Korea’s largest annual ceramics festival.

Dimensions: The ewer / wine pitcher being sold here measures approximately thirteen inches (13”) in height, six inches (6”) across the body of the ewer at its widest point, three quarters of an inch (3/4”) in diameter across the top, eight and three quarters inches (8 ¾”) across the from the spout to the opposing outside of the handle, by three and one quarter inches (3 1/4”) in diameter across the base.

Signature: Signed on the underside bottom with a black underglaze multi-character artist or studio mark. There is also a red underglaze seal or chop mark. Lastly, there is a paper label that reads: “MADE IN KOREA” Please Note: There is no identification guide for these markings / signatures. However, a few of the artists who created or who are still creating “Goryeo Celadon Revival” pottery include: Cho Ki-jung, Kim Hak-seung and his wife Cho Jung-soon, Joungoo Ham, Boksik Ji, Mae Cha, Woo Jong Il, Han Ki Woong, Woon Yung, Myung Sung, Hae Seok, Hae Chung, and there are many, many others!

Condition: Excellent and clean condition – absolutely beautiful! And Please Note: The crazing within the glaze is natural to the firing process.

Please scroll down to read some history about Goryeo Celadon pottery.

Domestic buyer pays calculated shipping for secure packing and USPS priority within the United States. I no longer ship internationally due to the high volume of scams taking place. Sorry.

GORYEO CELADON POTTERY (information courtesy the website for The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

By Soyoung Lee
Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
October 2003

The term celadon is thought to derive from the name of the hero in a seventeenth-century French pastoral comedy. The color of the character Céladon’s robe evoked, in the minds of Europeans, the distinctive green-glazed ceramics from China, where celadon originated. Some scholars object to such an arbitrary and romanticized Western nomenclature. Yet the ambiguity of the term celadon effectively captures the myriad hues of greens and blues of this ceramic type.

During the nearly five centuries of the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), celadon constituted the main type of ceramics produced on the Korean peninsula. This exquisite ware typically appears gray-green in hue. The color of Goryeo celadon owes much to the raw materials—specifically, the presence of iron in the clay and of iron oxide, manganese oxide, and quartz particles in the glaze—as well as to the firing conditions inside the kiln. Temperatures were commonly around, or below, 1150ºC, and the level of oxygen within the kiln was dramatically reduced at some stage of the firing; this is known as a reducing, rather than an oxidizing, atmosphere. Goryeo celadon ranges from a plain, undecorated type to objects with incised, carved, mold-impressed, or inlaid designs, and to vessels embellished with colorful compounds like iron oxide (black or brown) and copper oxide (red), and also with gold.

Celadon represents a major technological and conceptual shift in the history of Korean ceramics. The high-fired gray stoneware of the preceding Unified Silla dynasty (676–935) and Three Kingdoms period (57 B.C.–676 A.D.) had set the stage for the manufacture of celadon, but the technology of the celadon glaze and of the kiln structure, adapted from China, was an important advance. Just as significant is the conceptual change. With the advent of celadon, particularly the highly refined pieces used by the royal court, there is a palpable aesthetic dynamic driving what ceramics should look like. Color becomes an important element in this transformation, as do interpretive designs in form and decoration.

Initially, Goryeo potters learned much of the technical expertise from the celadon traditions of Song-dynasty (960–1279) China, particularly of its southern coast. A Song envoy, Xu Jing (1091–1153), who visited the Goryeo capital, Gaeseong, in 1123, noted the resemblance of Goryeo ceramics to the celadons of China’s Yue and Ru kilns. We see in early Goryeo examples a conscious emulation of certain stylistic features of Chinese wares—such as the shapes of bottles and bowls, and standard decorative motifs including lotuses, peonies, flying parrots, and scenes of waterfowl by the pond.

By the mid-twelfth century, Goryeo potters and patrons turned to articulating native tastes. This coincided with the consolidation of major celadon industries near the southwestern coast of the peninsula, in Jeolla Province—the Buan and Gangjin regions especially. The latter remains, today, the center of modern celadon production and of revivals of Goryeo traditions. The culmination of Goryeo celadon can be seen in inlaid (sanggam) celadon, a rarity in China. The delicate technique of sanggam involves etching the desired motifs on the dry clay body and filling in the carved space with black and/or white slip, after which the translucent glaze is applied and the vessel fired. The best of Goryeo inlaid celadon is breathtaking in its splendid presentation of clean form, vibrant design, and subtle yet alluring color combination of white, black, and green.
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Citation
Lee, Soyoung. “Goryeo Celadon.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000– (October 2003)
Further Reading
Gompertz, G. St. G. M. Korean Celadon: And Other Wares of the Koryô Period. London: Faber and Faber, 1963.
Itoh Ikutaro. Korean Ceramics from the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.
Pak, Youngsook, and Roderick Whitfield. Earthenware and Celadon. London: Laurence King, 2002.