Skip Navigation

Dragon Jar

Asian Art

On View: Asian Galleries, South, 2nd floor
By the seventeenth century, porcelain had overtaken stoneware as the ceramic of choice for wealthy Koreans and underglaze brown—once favored for decoration of Buncheong stonewares—enjoyed a brief revival, this time on porcelain vessels. These large, bulbous storage jars were formed by joining two bowls, one inverted on top of the other. The swelling surfaces of the jars give dimension and energy to curvilinear forms, as seen in particular in the swirl of the highly abstracted dragon.
MEDIUM Porcelain with iron-painted decoration under clear glaze
  • Place Made: Korea
  • DATES mid 17th century
    DYNASTY Joseon Dynasty
    DIMENSIONS overall: 12 11/16 x 14 9/16 in. (32.2 x 37 cm) Height: 12 11/16 in. (32.2 cm) Diameter: 14 9/16 in. (37 cm)  (show scale)
    COLLECTIONS Asian Art
    ACCESSION NUMBER 86.139
    CREDIT LINE Gift of the Asian Art Council
    CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION From "Korean Art Collection in the Brooklyn Museum" catalogue: The dragons that adorn seventeenth-century Joseon porcelain jars were conceived more as comical figures than the more traditional, sublime dragons that symbolized royalty. The political and economic instability of the period, caused by the Ming-Qing transition in China, affected the import of cobalt blue pigment from the continent, eventually leading Joseon potters to use iron oxide. The dragon decorating the surface of this jar has protruding round eyes and a wide-open mouth that suggest innocence and naiveté rather than furiousness. The limbless dragon, flying among the clouds, is depicted in an extremely simple manner with just a few strokes of the brush. There are a lot of impurities in the clay of the body, which is coated with a light gray glaze. It is a fine work of art that exhibits the distinctive characteristics of seventeenth century porcelain jars decorated with dragon designs in underglaze iron.
    EXHIBITIONS
    MUSEUM LOCATION This item is on view in Asian Galleries, South, 2nd floor
    CAPTION Dragon Jar, mid 17th century. Porcelain with iron-painted decoration under clear glaze, overall: 12 11/16 x 14 9/16 in. (32.2 x 37 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Asian Art Council, 86.139. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 86.139_color_corrected_SL1.jpg)
    IMAGE overall, 86.139_color_corrected_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
    "CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
    RIGHTS STATEMENT Creative Commons-BY
    You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
    RECORD COMPLETENESS
    Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.