National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

This white porcelain bowl has a cloud-and-crane pattern and arabesque in gold leaf on its base coated with white pigment. It was made at the Ding kilns (today's Dingzhou city in Hebei Province) in the Northern Song period and is one of the most important works of the celebrated "Ding bowls of gold flower," which were called that because of their gold leafed patterns. Although most of the gold leaf has come off, traces of the grace of its initial state are still visible. It has been reported that this bowl was excavated from the Koryo Tumulus on Ryongmae-do Island, off the shore of Haeju city on the west coast of the Korean Peninsula.