# Bowl with two boys and lotuses > Goryeo dynasty celadon kilns (unattributed potter) - Early 12th century, Goryeo dynasty > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/goryeo-celadon-kilns/goryeo-celadon-bowl-yamanaka-met/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-03 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Goryeo dynasty celadon kilns (unattributed potter) - **Date:** Early 12th century, Goryeo dynasty - **Medium:** Stoneware with mold-impressed design under celadon glaze - **Dimensions:** Height 6.4 cm (2 1/2 in.); diameter 19.4 cm (7 5/8 in.) - **Object type:** Ceramic - **Period:** Korea, Goryeo dynasty (918-1392) - **Current location:** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Department of Asian Art, on view in Gallery 233 - **Attribution:** unknown ## Summary A small stoneware bowl decorated with two boys among lotus scrolls under a jade-green celadon glaze, made in Korea in the early twelfth century at the height of the Goryeo dynasty's reputation for the finest green ware then known outside China. It reached the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1911 as a gift of Sadajiro Yamanaka, head of Yamanaka and Co., then one of the largest dealers moving East Asian art, including Korean material, into American and European collections.The gift falls squarely inside a well documented and still unresolved history: Goryeo celadon of exactly this kind was being dug up from tombs around the old capital at Kaesong in exactly this decade, largely under Japan's colonial administration of Korea, and Yamanaka's own firm is separately documented as having profited from acquiring antiquities cheaply from Korea and China during this period of upheaval. What is not documented, anywhere in the sources consulted for this record, is that this specific bowl came from a looted tomb or any other named findspot; the Museum's own accession record carries no provenance earlier than the 1911 gift at all.This record states the general historical pattern plainly, states just as plainly what is and is not known about this one bowl, and keeps the two apart. Where the honest answer is unknown, it is recorded as unknown rather than filled in with an inference the sources do not support. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **-1911** Unrecorded `[unknown]` (gap) No owner, findspot, or acquisition history is documented for this bowl before 1911. The bowl's date and its donor's documented dealing activity place it within a well studied historical category, colonial-period Goryeo celadon moving through the trade via dealers including Yamanaka and Co., but no source consulted names a findspot, an excavator, or a prior owner for this specific object, and none is invented here. See the narrative sections on the colonial-period trade and on the Ogura Collection for what a documented case in this category looks like by contrast. - **1911** Sadajiro Yamanaka / Yamanaka and Co. `[documented]` (gift) Given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1911 by Sadajiro Yamanaka, head of Yamanaka and Co., per the Museum's own credit line and accession record. - **1911-present** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (ownership) In the Museum's Department of Asian Art continuously since the 1911 gift; currently on view in Gallery 233. ## Open questions - How or from whom Sadajiro Yamanaka or Yamanaka and Co. acquired this bowl before donating it to the Metropolitan Museum in 1911 is not documented in any source consulted for this record. - The bowl's findspot, if any, is not recorded. The Museum's own object record carries no provenance history earlier than the 1911 gift. - The specific stylistic or archaeological basis for the Museum's own dating of the bowl to about 1100-1133 is not published in the sources consulted. - Whether this bowl has been discussed by name in Korean-language Goryeo ceramics scholarship could not be established from the sources available for this research. - Whether the bowl can be attributed to a specific kiln site, such as Gangjin or Buan, on technical grounds (glaze chemistry, body composition) has not been addressed in any published source located for this record. - Whether any customs, export or shipping record survives for the bowl's 1911 transfer from Yamanaka to the Museum has not been established. ## Sources - [1] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Collection API, object record for object ID 50352 (accession 11.8.6, 'Bowl with two boys and lotuses'). - [2] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, object page for 'Bowl with two boys and lotuses', accession 11.8.6. - [3] Wikidata, item Q116313618, 'Bowl with Two Boys and Lotuses', linking accession 11.8.6 and Museum object ID 50352. - [4] Wikipedia, 'Sadajiro Yamanaka', for biographical dates and firm history. Flagged as a tertiary source pending replacement with archival biography. - [5] Najiba H. Choudhury, 'Seizures and Liquidation Sales in the United States during World War II: Tracking the Fate of Japanese Art Dealership, Yamanaka & Company, Inc.', Journal for Art Market Studies 2 (2020). - [6] Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, 'Yamanaka & Co.: Early Pioneer of the Global Asian Art Trade' (Hidden Networks research programme). - [7] Charlotte Horlyck, 'Desirable commodities: unearthing and collecting Koryo celadon ceramics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries', Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 76, no. 3 (2013), 467-491. - [8] Melissa (YoungJae) Koo, 'Repatriation of Korean Cultural Property Looted by Japan - Can a Sincere Apology Resolve the Centuries-Old Korea/Japan Disputes?', Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution 16 (2015), 625. - [9] Donald MacIntyre, 'A Legacy Lost', TIME, 4 February 2002, on Japanese colonial-period collecting of Korean cultural property, the Ogura Collection, and named colonial officials and collectors. - [10] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Goryeo Celadon', Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History essay, for Xu Jing's account, the bisaek glaze and the sanggam technique. - [11] Wikipedia, 'Goryeo ware', for the production timeline, kiln sites and end of the industry. Flagged as a tertiary source pending replacement with primary ceramics scholarship. - [12] Wikipedia, 'Korean ceramics', for the 1916 Government-General survey of tombs around Kaesong. Flagged as a tertiary source. - [13] Smarthistory, 'Korean celadons of the Goryeo dynasty', for Xu Jing's and Taiping Laoren's assessments and the sanggam technique. - [14] Wikimedia Commons, file description pages and extended metadata for File:MET DP342744.jpg, File:MET DP253565.jpg, File:MET DP253893.jpg, File:Goryeo dynasty bowl with children playing among lotuses, HMA 150.JPG, and File:Bowl, Korea, Gangjin or Buan kilns, Goryeo period, 1100-1150 AD, stoneware, celadon, glaze - Freer Gallery of Art - DSC04940.jpg, for licence verification. - [15] Cultural Property Disputes Resource, Claremont Graduate University, 'Korean Ogura Collection of Military Artifacts and Jewelry', on the 1965 treaty negotiations and the collection's status. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.