Brush Rest (1127–1279): Art, History and Details

Brush Rest (1127–1279) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This brush rest, shaped like a mountain range, is covered with a thick and soft gray-blue crackled Guan ware glaze that pools in the deeper areas, giving the mountain range a hazy appearance as if enshrouded in white mists. Guan ware was produced in the imperial kilns in Hangzhou, the Southern Song dynasty capital.

Object facts

• Title: Brush Rest
• Date: 1127–1279
• Culture: Southeast China, Zhejiang province, Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: glazed stoneware, Guan ware
• Dimensions: Diameter: 2.8 x 7.6 cm (1 1/8 x 3 in.); Overall: 6 cm (2 3/8 in.)
• Collection: China - Song Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1957.42

A detail from the museum

There are twelve "hills" on this mountain-shaped brush rest.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Beurdeley, Michel. The Chinese Collector Through the Centuries, from the Han to the 20th Century. Rutland, VT: C.E. Tuttle Co, 1966.
• Kleinhenz, Henry J. “Porcelains for Imperial Use: The Sung Dynasty.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 65, no. 4 (April 1978): 135–150.
• Williams, Marjorie. Chinese Painting--an Escape from the "Dusty" World. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1981.

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.