A KOREAN CELADON FLUTED CUP AND A CUPSTAND KORYO DYNASTY, 12TH CENTURY

the cup with rounded sides divided into eight foliations, rising from a splayed foot to a lobed rim, each lobe carved with a floral spray below a lappet band, the associated stand of lobed decafoil form, with shallow rounded sides rising to a lobed everted rim, decorated with floral sprays enclosed in panels, the interior with a central cup-holder carved with a floral medallion and leafy lappets, resting on a splayed recessed base formed from ten lappets, each carved with trefoil leaf motif, both covered in a crackled sea-green glaze

The cup:
Bluett & Sons Ltd, London, 1960.
Collection of Roger Pilkington (1928-69), from 1960 (£28).

The stand:
Gordon Hand, London, 1960.
Bluett & Sons Ltd, London, 1960 (£12).
Collection of Roger Pilkington (1928-69), from 1960 (£17:10).

Compare three cups and cupstands of similar lobed form, in the National Museum of Korea, Seoul, included in the Museum’s exhibition Koryo Celadon Masterpieces, Seoul, 1989, cat. nos 85, 86 and 87; another in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, illustrated in Bernard Rackham, Catalogue of the Le Blond Collection of Corean Pottery, London, 1918, pl. 46; and a third from the collection of G.St.G.M. Gompertz and now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, illustrated in Yun Yong-i, Korean Art from the Gompertz and Other Collections in the Fitzwilliam Museum: A Complete Catalogue, Cambridge, 2006, pl. 51. See also a cup and saucer sold in our London rooms, 10th June 1986, lot 212; and another from the collection of Ether Shields Garrett, sold at Christie’s New York, 2nd December 1986, lot 161.

Similar cupstands have been recovered from the Yuch’ŏn-ri kiln site; see two reconstructed examples included in the Special Exhibition of Ceramics in Koryŏ Dynasty from the Kiln Site of Yu-Cheun-ri, Guan-gun, Cholla-buk-do, Ewha University Museum, Seoul, 1983, cat. no. 111.