Basin with Inscribed Figures and Calligraphy
1100s–1200s
- Medium
- bronze
- Classification
- Metalwork
- Dimensions
- Overall: 17 cm (6 11/16 in.); Diameter of mouth with rim: 21.7 cm (8 9/16 in.)
- Culture
- Korea, Goryeo dynasty (918–1392)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Korean Art
- Credit line
- Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This bronze basin may have been used for containing purified water. What makes this work charming is its intricate decoration done in silver inlay: the five-character, four-line poems interspersed among images of a child. The poems, which evoke the concept of nonattachment and nonduality, were written by Buddhist monks.
