Brush Holder with Bamboo and Landscape Design
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
An 18th-century Korean collector Yu Man-joo (1755–1788) wrote that “spending money on luxury clothing, dishes, and decorations for the home is a waste, but acquiring fancy writing tools helps to develop elegant taste and high-mindedness.” Inspired by aesthetic discourses on elegance versus vulgarity in late Ming Chinese literature, Korean collectors in the late 1700s and 1800s strove to assemble objects that would display their intellect and sophisticated taste. Stationery objects in particular—printed books, finely crafted brushes, brush holders, ink stones, water droppers, stone wares with grayish-white crackled glazes as well as bronze vessels, and incense burners—were all objects that reflected pure and elegant taste.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionSimilar works
Brush Holder with Travelers in a Landscape
Brush holder with scholars in a garden
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Brush holder with “Ode to the Pavilion of the Inebriated Old Man”
Brush Holder with Fisherman and Traveler