Dragon Jar
Asian Art
By the seventeenth century, porcelain had overtaken stoneware as the ceramic of choice for wealthy Koreans and underglaze brown—once favored for decoration of Buncheong stonewares—enjoyed a brief revival, this time on porcelain vessels. These large, bulbous storage jars were formed by joining two bowls, one inverted on top of the other. The swelling surfaces of the jars give dimension and energy to curvilinear forms, as seen in particular in the swirl of the highly abstracted dragon.
MEDIUM
Porcelain with iron-painted decoration under clear glaze
DATES
mid 17th century
DYNASTY
Joseon Dynasty
DIMENSIONS
overall: 12 11/16 x 14 9/16 in. (32.2 x 37 cm)
Height: 12 11/16 in. (32.2 cm)
Diameter: 14 9/16 in. (37 cm)
(show scale)
ACCESSION NUMBER
86.139
CREDIT LINE
Gift of the Asian Art Council
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION
From "Korean Art Collection in the Brooklyn Museum" catalogue:
The dragons that adorn seventeenth-century Joseon porcelain jars were conceived more as comical figures than the more traditional, sublime dragons that symbolized royalty. The political and economic instability of the period, caused by the Ming-Qing transition in China, affected the import of cobalt blue pigment from the continent, eventually leading Joseon potters to use iron oxide. The dragon decorating the surface of this jar has protruding round eyes and a wide-open mouth that suggest innocence and naiveté rather than furiousness. The limbless dragon, flying among the clouds, is depicted in an extremely simple manner with just a few strokes of the brush. There are a lot of impurities in the clay of the body, which is coated with a light gray glaze. It is a fine work of art that exhibits the distinctive characteristics of seventeenth century porcelain jars decorated with dragon designs in underglaze iron.
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
Dragon Jar, mid 17th century. Porcelain with iron-painted decoration under clear glaze, overall: 12 11/16 x 14 9/16 in. (32.2 x 37 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Asian Art Council, 86.139. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 86.139_color_corrected_SL1.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, 86.139_color_corrected_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT
Creative Commons-BY
You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a
Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply.
Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online
application form (charges apply).
For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the
United States Library of Congress,
Cornell University,
Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and
Copyright Watch.
For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our
blog posts on copyright.
If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact
copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and
we welcome any additional information you might have.