Dish with Inlaid Plant Design

1300s

Dish with Inlaid Plant Design, 1300s. Korea, Goryeo period (918-1392). Celadon with inlaid design; overall: 6.7 cm (2 5/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of John L. Severance 1921.671 As early as the seventh century, the practice of drinking tea and wine became an important part of elite leisure culture in Korea. A wide bowl like this example was especially suitable for drinking powdered tea shaved from a compressed tea cake, the most commonly enjoyed type during the Goryeo period. The inlaid image of bloomed white flowers on the inner wall of this tea bowl must have made the moment of drinking tea more enjoyable. The transparent greenish and bluish glaze of Goryeo celadons, shown in this bowl, is the result of distinctive small and long Korean kilns, which maintained a low oxygen saturation with a high level of carbon dioxide.