Bottle decorated with flowering plant

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This flask-shaped bottle decorated with iron-brown flowering plant is an excellent and rare example of buncheong ware. Iron-brown ornamentation was primarily implemented in the Gongju Hakbong-ri kilns in South Chungcheong Province, of which the Met’s jar with floral scroll (2006.241) is a good example. Differing from that jar with the partially covered slip on a dark clay body, this bottle has a finer, white clay body that is almost entirely covered in slip. The flowering plant is represented in a whimsical manner with confident brushwork. These qualities indicate that this bottle was produced at the Goheung Undae-ri kilns in South Jeolla Province, a region that predominately produced incised and sgraffito buncheong wares (1986.305 and 16.122.1). There are only two other known examples of intact bottles with this design and they are in Japanese and Korean museum collections.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art