Brush Holder with Bamboo and Landscape Design
Unknown Artist
1800s
Medium
carved bamboo
Dimensions
10.1 × 9 cm · diameter of foot 9.8 cm
Classification
Wood
Department
Korean Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
John L. Severance Fund
Accession Number
1988.74
About this artwork
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—...