Cleveland Museum of Art

Bowl with Inlaid Cranes and Clouds Design

Date

1200s-1300s

Medium

pottery

Culture

Korea, Goryeo dynasty (918–1392)

Department

Korean Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

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 cranes amid clouds that decorate the inner wall of this tea bowl is considered an auspicious sign particularly about the king's good governance. An actual event in 1121, which constitutes a groups of cranes hovering above the palace in Kaifeng, the capital of the Chinese Northern Song dynasty, soon became internationally recognized as a heavenly sign about the ruler's virtuous governance.

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