Bowl with Incised Parrot Design

1100s-1200s

Bowl with Incised Parrot Design, 1100s-1200s. Korea, Goryeo period (918-1392). Glazed porcelain; overall: 8.6 cm (3 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Educational Purchase Fund 1924.136 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 image of flying parrots inscribed on the inner wall of this tea bowl may have made the moment of drinking tea much enjoyable. On the base of this tea bowl, three small spur marks made of bits of clay remain visible, indicating an individual protective casing of fire clay (saggar).