Mapping the Circulation and Use of Korean Tea Bowls in Sixteenth Century Japan

Displaced from their original context of production and consumption, Korean ceramic tea bowls, called kōrai chawan in Japan, became valuable objects sought out by Japanese military elites, wealthy merchants, and monks. These men participated in sixteenth-century Japanese tea practice, chanoyu, a specialized cultural forum for aesthetic discourse. The appreciation for kōrai chawan marked the beginning of Japanese interest in collecting non-Chinese objects, and this shift had a profound impact on sixteenth-century Japanese aesthetics, as well as both Korean and Japanese artistic production later in the seventeenth century. Diaries kept by four sixteenth-century Japanese merchants, who were active collectors and tea practitioners, document how Korean tea bowls became highly valuable items among Japanese elites from 1537 onwards. While these historical texts are key sources of information on the appreciation of premodern Korean ceramics in Japan, they have been overlooked by scholars of Korean art history, since their renown has been limited to the specialized field of premodern Japanese tea culture. Using the integrated application, Palladio, developed at Humanities + Design, Stanford University, the presenter mapped data compiled from more than 600 diary entries from 1537 to 1591 that mention Korean ceramics. This presentation will provide an overview of the results of the data analysis and address how data visualization can expand our understanding of the transnational impact of premodern Korean ceramics, and facilitate the introduction of unfamiliar primary sources to the field of Korean studies. 

Sol Jung is the inaugural Shirley Z. Johnson Assistant Curator of Japanese Art at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, where she oversees the museum’s collection of prehistoric to contemporary Japanese ceramics, lacquerware, metalwork, and textiles. Jung specializes in transnational art history with a focus on how maritime trade networks bridge Korea and Japan’s visual cultures during the premodern period. She received her B.A. with distinction in History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Art and Archaeology from Princeton University. Jung curated Princeton University Art Museum’s first thematic exhibition of Korean ceramics entitled Korean Ceramics: From Archaeology to Art History. Her research on the reception of Korean tea bowls, called kōrai chawan in Japan, during the sixteenth century has been supported by the Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art Studies and the Kyujanggak International Center for Korean Studies. She has curated the exhibition Reasons to Gather: Japanese Tea Practice Unwrapped (April 12, 2025- April 26, 2026) among others. Jung is a team member of the Teaching Tea project through Japan Past and Present, a global information hub that is a part of the Yanai Initiative for Globalizing the Japanese Humanities at UCLA and Waseda University. She is also a core team member of the project Shared Coasts Divided Historiographies: Mobilizing People, Ideas, and Artifacts in the East Asian Mediterranean at Kyushu University funded by the Getty.