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Cylindrical Brushholder
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
The brush holder shows children celebrating seasonal festivals, pursuing games, and masquerading as adults with attributes that suggest their future careers in the military or civil service. Three boys play in the shadow of a garden rock with cricket cages; others parade a boy on a goat who wears the headgear of a scholar who passed first in the state examinations. Left to the goat kneels a boy who is about to ignite fire crackers lined up on a stone, a custom to celebrate the New Year. Moreover, the combinations of motifs form puns that express auspicious wishes.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineCylindrical Brushholder, 1736–95 or later, mid-1800s?. China, Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Qianlong reign (1736–95). Porcelain; diameter: 9.3 cm (3 11/16 in.); overall: 11.5 cm (4 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Collection, 1944.178
