JAR, White porcelain, Joseon Dynasty (1392–1897 CE)
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A white porcelain standing jar from the mid-Joseon period, circa the 17th century.
Height 41.3 cm; body diameter 31 cm. From a low footring the lower body rises in an extended curve, gradually widening toward the top and swelling gently at the shoulder. From the shoulder it tapers toward the mouth, the broad rim turning out slightly. The mouth is low, the shoulder beginning immediately below it. This is an earlier form, distinct from the high, outward-flaring mouths characteristic of the late Joseon period.
Among large white-porcelain jars of the Joseon dynasty, the standing jar was produced before the globular form. Large standing jars bearing cloud-and-dragon motifs were called dragon jars and, in royal rituals, functioned both as vessels for alcohol and as flower jars for holding artificial flowers to decorate court banquets. This example is plain white porcelain without decoration.
In the 17th century, warfare and a shortage of cobalt made it difficult to produce blue-and-white dragon jars in sufficient numbers. As a result, plain white porcelains later painted with dragons, and dragon jars decorated with iron-painted cloud-and-dragon motifs, were used as substitutes. This context attests to the importance of large standing jars as indispensable vessels in royal ceremonies.
The body was thrown on the wheel in two separate sections, upper and lower, and joined at the center. This joined-body technique was used on jars from the early Joseon period and was later adopted for the full-moon jar. On the interior a smoothing trace where the joint was leveled runs around the circumference. On the exterior a faint ridge and slight distortion follow the seam; when struck by light, the shadow across the midsection changes.
The glaze is of high whiteness with only a faint bluish cast. It has flowed evenly over the entire body, producing a uniform tone. The surface has a smooth sheen; when viewed closely, fine throwing lines and minute iron specks are visible. The glaze reaches into the interior of the foot ring, and the base shows traces of having been fired with sand used as a support.
There are minor, age-related scratches and scuffs, but the rim, body, and foot are all well preserved. As a large example of Joseon white porcelain, it is in exceptionally good condition.
Numerous product photos are available for you to examine the details and condition. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Its aesthetic placed emphasis not on surface splendor or technical virtuosity, but on forms and modes of being that quietly support a person’s inner life. Vessels and furniture were not simply tools for use; they may also have served as a kind of “place of self-cultivation,” ordering one’s daily conduct and state of mind. A plain jar in a scholar’s study, a simple desk, an undecorated brush rest—these were objects before the eye, but also mirrors of one’s posture and thought.
It is no accident that crafts from the Joseon period possess a presence that “does not say too much.” They were made to accompany the inner life—not to overwhelm the viewer, but to breathe alongside us and quietly restore a sense of order.
In white porcelain, for example, such “unintended phenomena” as the slight flow of glaze, variations in the clay body, or slight irregularities of form were accepted as they were. They embody a spirit of broad acceptance, unlike the modern aesthetic that treats perfection and uniformity as the highest values. This view reconsiders the boundaries between nature and human making, beauty and imperfection, object and mind; it is not an exaggeration to say that it existed beyond the frame of craft as the spirit of an age.
If we were to name it, the beauty of Joseon is not a “beauty of display” but a “beauty of resonance.” Its beauty lies not solely in the attraction of the object itself, but in the opportunity it gives us to reconsider how a person ought to be through the object. For this reason, an object must not speak too much; it must contain intervals, open space, and silence. I cannot help feeling that such thought runs beneath the making of these objects.
These values eventually crossed the sea and took deep root in Japan. In the world of chanoyu in particular, Joseon white porcelain and buncheong ware were already being used by the Momoyama period. Their simple, quiet character—different from the solemn grandeur of Chinese karamono—came to be embraced. The tea aesthetic of “clearing the mind before what does not speak” resonated deeply with the silence and imperfection held in Joseon vessels, nurturing a gaze that found in them the spirit of wabi-sabi.
With the arrival of the modern era, thinkers of the Mingei movement such as Yanagi Sōetsu and Kawai Kanjirō found in Joseon vessels “the power to purify a person” and “a form of life as it ought to be.” At a time when craft was being forgotten, these objects were welcomed not merely as old vessels but, with profound sympathy and respect, as presences reflecting a way of living itself.
When I, living in the present day, encounter the crafts of Joseon, I am moved once again by their stillness. They contain the thought of an age that asked how a person should live and how one should be. That thought has not faded; it continues to resonate clearly even now.
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Tax excluded. Import duties may apply. Shipping costs are calculated at checkout.
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