Jar

“Once upon a time long, long ago when the tiger smoked a pipe . . .”

This familiar phrase, used at the beginning of Korean children’s stories, is represented literally on this jar in underglaze cobalt. The tiger-and-magpie theme is a popular motif in Korean folk painting. In the past, Koreans believed that tigers embodied the spirit of mountains and possessed the power to ward off all evil and harm, and that magpies were harbingers of good news. Porcelain wares with underglaze-cobalt decoration began to be produced in Korea during the fifteenth century, with imported cobalt from West Asia through China.