Tea ceremony bowl, Ido Korai* chawan, Korea, 16th - 17th century Conical in shape, resting on a high heel, it is covered with a thick grey glaze sometimes turning to white. Inside, four small firing pearls. A few chips on the rim have been repaired with gold lacquer using the Japanese kintsugi technique. Height: 8.5 cm; diameter: 15 cm Provenance : Louis Gonse Collection sale, Hôtel Drouot, May 5-10, 1924, no. 457. This bowl, no. 457 in the Gonse collection, was given as Ko-Hagi-Nagato, but certain features such as the four beads inside the bowl suggest a Korean production. A production that later had a huge influence on Japanese potters, both in terms of shape and coverings. Various theories about these Ido chawan bowls contradict each other. According to some researchers, they were fired in Japan by Korean potters; according to others, they came directly from Korea. One thing unites these different theories: the Korean origin of the potters. Ido ceramics are one of the most famous types of Kōrai chawan. This type of bowl, made in regional kilns in Korea's southern Kyŏngsang province, has not fully vitrified due to its clay containing a considerable amount of kaolin. Consequently, the most pronounced feature of Ido bowls is the irregular texture of the coarse stoneware body covered with a thick ash glaze, which Japanese tea connoisseurs found attractive. Ido bowls, 井戸茶碗, are in Japan the most precious bowls, symbols of the wabi-sabi spirit in the Japanese tea ceremony. The proverbial 一井戸二楽三唐津 (first ido, then raku, then karatsu) bears witness to this. The name "Kōrai" comes from the Japanese pronunciation of Koryŏ, the dynasty that ruled the Korean peninsula from the 10th to the 14th century, and became a synonym for Korea in Japan. The best-known varieties of Kōrai chawan are Mishima, Ido and Katade.