Jar with Horn-Shaped Handles (200s–400s CE): Art, History and Details

Jar with Horn-Shaped Handles (200s–400s CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Pottery vessels, such as this one, were produced in sloping tunnel kilns that reached 1,000 to 1,200 degrees Celsius. This jar’s bulbous body with delicate horn-shaped handles suggests that it may have served to present offerings to the deceased. This type of high-fired terracotta vessel is usually excavated from tomb sites in the southwestern region of the Korean peninsula.

Object facts

• Title: Jar with Horn-Shaped Handles
• Date: 200s–400s CE
• Culture: Korea, Silla (57 BCE–935 CE)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: earthenware with incised decoration and color
• Dimensions: Overall: 23.5 cm (9 1/4 in.); Diameter of mouth: 15.9 cm (6 1/4 in.); Diameter with handles: 16.5 cm (6 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1991.137

A detail from the museum

Closed kilns built on hillsides became widely used for producing this type of pottery vessel in Korea during the Three Kingdoms period.

Collection credit

Seventy-fifth anniversary gift of George Gund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1992.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 38–79.
• Cunningham, Michael R., "Asian Autumn", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 35 no. 08, October 1995
• Pottery from Ancient Korea: Clay Art for Life and Death [한국고대의토기 : 흙・예술・삶과 죽음]. Seoul: National Museum of Korea, 1997.

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.