Bowl with Inlaid Waterfowl, Willow, and Reed Design

1300s

Bowl with Inlaid Waterfowl, Willow, and Reed Design, 1300s. Korea, Goryeo period (918-1392). Celadon with inlaid design; diameter of mouth: 19.7 cm (7 3/4 in.); overall: 9.1 cm (3 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of John L. Severance 1918.458 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 ducks under willow trees on the inner wall of this tea bowl may have made the moment of drinking tea much enjoyable. This bowl with a lightly bent inward rim possibly takes the shape of an alms bowl by Buddhist monks.