11th Sep, 2025 11:00
The Collection of Sam and Myrna Myers Part 1
39
AN UNDERGLAZE IRON-PAINTED AND CELADON-GLAZED ‘PEONY’ MAEBYONG, GORYEO DYNASTY, 12TH CENTURY
This lot is from a single owner collection and is therefore offered without reserve
€4,000
€8,000
A buyer’s premium of 30.00% (including VAT) applies to the hammer price of this lot if your bid is successful.
Korea. Heavily potted with a robust ovoid body rising from a short foot and surmounted by a short cylindrical neck with a cup-form mouth, decorated in underglaze iron with peonies borne on scrolling foliage, enclosed between bands of oblique petals to the shoulder and foot.
Provenance: Ex-collection Roger Chambard, the first French Ambassador to Korea (1959-1969). The Collection of Sam and Myrna Myers, Paris, France. Acquired between circa 1965-2012. Ambassador Roger Chambard (1904-1982) had a lifetime affection and curiosity for continents and cultures, including Africa, the Arab world and the Far East. He shared his interests in history and archaeology with his acquaintances, the writers Henry de Monfreid and Joseph Kessel. His first post in Asia was in China in Hankou (Province of Hubei) from 1932 to 1938. Afterwards he was posted to the Middle East, returning to Asia in 1959 as French Ambassador to South Korea. His interest and his knowledge of Asian cultures as well as his popularity permitted him to stay for ten years in Seoul.
Condition: Old wear and firing irregularities including pitting, crackling, encrustations, and glaze recesses. The foot slightly warped. The mouth with old repairs. Fine kintsugi repairs to the body.
Weight: 1,757 g
Dimensions: Height 26.3 cm
Wine bottles like this are known as maebyong, a term derived from the Chinese meiping (“vase for plum blossoms”), a misnomer coined by Qing dynasty scholars. The iron-painted (ch'olhwa) decoration shows some affinity with Chinese Cizhou wares, though this technique was first employed under a celadon glaze in Korea. Celadon ware produced for the court and aristocracy of the Goryeo dynasty is typically gray-green in color—an aesthetic highly prized at the extravagant Goryeo court. The application of underglaze iron required considerable skill, as it had to be executed swiftly before the pigment was absorbed into the clay body.
This shape is typical of twelfth-century maebyong painted in iron. It was probably used for plum blossom or ginseng wine. Sherds of such iron-painted celadon have been excavated at the Kyeyul-ri kiln site in Kangjin-gun, South Cholla province. And still others have been excavated from the kiln site in Jinsan-ri, Haenam and from the waters around Eodu-ri of Wando Island.
When contemplating a vessel repaired with kintsugi, several aesthetic considerations come into play. The first is the recognition that many ceramics, especially those used in chanoyu, often have a lineage of owners, or a distinguished provenance, and the act of repair allows that act of passing down the object to continue past the generation when the damage occurred. Another is that a given vessel, having been handmade, can never be perfectly reproduced or replaced, and so repair is preferable to losing the object completely. A third, and perhaps the most difficult to describe in words, are the Japanese concepts of wabi and sabi, the former an appreciation of poverty, an undemanding nature, and imperfection, and the latter a recognition that things change over time, often in the direction of altered patina or decay. It is these concepts that allow the damage that an object has sustained to be highlighted with gold, emphasizing the repair rather than trying to hide it. Finally, while aesthetic considerations are key in the use of gold in a kintsugi repair, the restoration of the object to usefulness, returning the vessel to functionality as a jar is the driving force behind this act.
Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related maebyong, dated to the Goryeo dynasty, 27 cm high, in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, accession number OC.90-1946. Compare a closely related maebyong, dated to the Goryeo dynasty, first half of 12th century, 22 cm high, in the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, accession number F1917.290. Compare a closely related maebyong, celadon with chrysanthemum scrolls design, dated to the Goryeo Dynasty, 22 cm high, in the National Museum of Korea, accession number Deoksu4930.
Korea. Heavily potted with a robust ovoid body rising from a short foot and surmounted by a short cylindrical neck with a cup-form mouth, decorated in underglaze iron with peonies borne on scrolling foliage, enclosed between bands of oblique petals to the shoulder and foot.
Provenance: Ex-collection Roger Chambard, the first French Ambassador to Korea (1959-1969). The Collection of Sam and Myrna Myers, Paris, France. Acquired between circa 1965-2012. Ambassador Roger Chambard (1904-1982) had a lifetime affection and curiosity for continents and cultures, including Africa, the Arab world and the Far East. He shared his interests in history and archaeology with his acquaintances, the writers Henry de Monfreid and Joseph Kessel. His first post in Asia was in China in Hankou (Province of Hubei) from 1932 to 1938. Afterwards he was posted to the Middle East, returning to Asia in 1959 as French Ambassador to South Korea. His interest and his knowledge of Asian cultures as well as his popularity permitted him to stay for ten years in Seoul.
Condition: Old wear and firing irregularities including pitting, crackling, encrustations, and glaze recesses. The foot slightly warped. The mouth with old repairs. Fine kintsugi repairs to the body.
Weight: 1,757 g
Dimensions: Height 26.3 cm
Wine bottles like this are known as maebyong, a term derived from the Chinese meiping (“vase for plum blossoms”), a misnomer coined by Qing dynasty scholars. The iron-painted (ch'olhwa) decoration shows some affinity with Chinese Cizhou wares, though this technique was first employed under a celadon glaze in Korea. Celadon ware produced for the court and aristocracy of the Goryeo dynasty is typically gray-green in color—an aesthetic highly prized at the extravagant Goryeo court. The application of underglaze iron required considerable skill, as it had to be executed swiftly before the pigment was absorbed into the clay body.
This shape is typical of twelfth-century maebyong painted in iron. It was probably used for plum blossom or ginseng wine. Sherds of such iron-painted celadon have been excavated at the Kyeyul-ri kiln site in Kangjin-gun, South Cholla province. And still others have been excavated from the kiln site in Jinsan-ri, Haenam and from the waters around Eodu-ri of Wando Island.
When contemplating a vessel repaired with kintsugi, several aesthetic considerations come into play. The first is the recognition that many ceramics, especially those used in chanoyu, often have a lineage of owners, or a distinguished provenance, and the act of repair allows that act of passing down the object to continue past the generation when the damage occurred. Another is that a given vessel, having been handmade, can never be perfectly reproduced or replaced, and so repair is preferable to losing the object completely. A third, and perhaps the most difficult to describe in words, are the Japanese concepts of wabi and sabi, the former an appreciation of poverty, an undemanding nature, and imperfection, and the latter a recognition that things change over time, often in the direction of altered patina or decay. It is these concepts that allow the damage that an object has sustained to be highlighted with gold, emphasizing the repair rather than trying to hide it. Finally, while aesthetic considerations are key in the use of gold in a kintsugi repair, the restoration of the object to usefulness, returning the vessel to functionality as a jar is the driving force behind this act.
Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related maebyong, dated to the Goryeo dynasty, 27 cm high, in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, accession number OC.90-1946. Compare a closely related maebyong, dated to the Goryeo dynasty, first half of 12th century, 22 cm high, in the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, accession number F1917.290. Compare a closely related maebyong, celadon with chrysanthemum scrolls design, dated to the Goryeo Dynasty, 22 cm high, in the National Museum of Korea, accession number Deoksu4930.
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Auction: The Collection of Sam and Myrna Myers Part 1, 11th Sep, 2025
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