Box with Painted Oxhorn (1800s): Art, History and Details

Box with Painted Oxhorn (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This box is colorfully decorated with the technique of oxhorn plating. The oxhorn was cut, soaked in water, boiled, and then pressed into thin translucent sheets. Since oxhorns are usually rather small, dozens of them were required to fully decorate even a small wooden object. This box is colorfully painted with the imagery of auspicious plants and animals such as dragons amid clouds, a white tiger under the pine tree, a grazing deer, and more. This kind of luxurious box was probably produced as a wedding gift.

Object facts

• Title: Box with Painted Oxhorn
• Date: 1800s
• Culture: Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
• Type: Miscellaneous
• Technique: painted wood with flattened ox-horn inlay
• Dimensions: Overall: 16.5 x 28.6 cm (6 1/2 x 11 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1920.37

A detail from the museum

This box is made of small flattened pieces of oxhorn. Since oxhorn is usually rather small, possibly dozens of them were used to fully decorate even a small wooden object like this box.

Collection credit

Sundry Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Ye, Yong-hae. "Hwagakjang." Ye Yong-hae jeonjip. Seoul: Daewonsa, 1997.
• Jeong, Myeong-ho. "Hangukgongye gwahakgisulbaldalsa: hwagakgongyee daehan yeongureul jungsimeuro [韓國工藝 科學技術發達史: 華角工藝에 대한 연구를 중심으로]." Silhaksasang yeongu 15–16 (January 2000): 543–612.
• Treasures from Korea: Arts and Culture of the Joseon Dynasty, 1392-1910. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2014.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.