Buncheong Bottle with Vine Design in Underglaze Iron

Joseon Period (16th Century)

This vessel is a characteristic example of the sixteenth-century wine bottle form: a widely flared, trumpet-shaped mouth rim gives way to a neck that narrows in a gentle, undulating curve before the body opens gradually from the shoulder, swells to a fitting breadth at its widest point, and then tapers to a clean, upright base. The entire surface is coated with white slip applied by the broad brush (guiyal) technique, and encircling lines divide the surface into registers. On either face of the body, simplified peony leaf motifs — abstracted into a relaxed, vine-like form — are rendered in natural, unforced symmetry with an ease that speaks of practiced, unhurried craft. This bottle was made to serve wine and was produced for everyday use among common people at the foot of Gyeryongsan mountain, where the Hakbong-ri kilns in Gongju were situated. The quietly restrained, vine-like motifs and the freely brushed white slip ground achieve a harmony that is entirely unaffected — modest in ambition, but wholly assured in execution.