Spherical White Porcelain Jar in Underglaze Copper

Joseon Period (18th Century)

This jar presents a wide, straight-sided mouth rim and a body that expands generously from the shoulder before tapering to an upright base. At three points around the upper body, pairs of double-ringed circles are arranged so that they partially overlap one another, and within each roundel a simplified landscape motif is painted in underglaze copper-red (donghwa) with a free and individual hand. The glaze is a white porcelain glaze with a faint suffusion of pale blue, with an even overall luster. This piece is an example of copper-red decorated white porcelain (donghwa baekja), in which copper oxide is employed as the colorant, and is presumed to have been produced at a provincial kiln during the latter half of the eighteenth century. The landscape motif set within double circular medallions is a design that also appears with some frequency on underglaze blue white porcelain jars of the period, and this work commands particular interest as a rare expression of the same compositional vocabulary rendered in copper-red.