Vessels of this form held rice or soup offerings during jesa, the Confucian rites performed for ancestors during the Joseon dynasty. The high foot lifts the offering above the table, which distinguished sacred food from ordinary food according to Neo-Confucian ritual.

Joseon ritual doctrine also held that ornament was unsuited to the solemnity of ancestral rites. The bluish-white color of the glaze is characteristic of the official kilns at Bunwon, which supplied the court and elite households. The unglazed band at the lid seam and along the foot rim indicates that the bowl and lid were stacked together and packed with refractory sand to keep them from fusing in the kiln.