Bowl with White-slip Decorations

This type of wide-mouthed bowl was used every day in Korea, not exclusively for tea drinking. But when it was introduced to Japan around the early 1500s, its imperfect appearance, which evokes the aesthetics of <em>wabi-sabi</em>, caused it to be repurposed as a tea bowl. Korean tea bowls were circulated as a item of foreign luxury among Japanese military elites. Many Korean potters were abducted during the Japanese invasions (1592–98). Some settled there, and ended up leading the development of ceramic industry in Japan.