Lid for Bamboo Shoot-shaped Ewer (1100s): Art, History and Details

Lid for Bamboo Shoot-shaped Ewer (1100s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Natural motifs inspired both the shape of celadon vessels as well as their inlaid designs in the Goryeo period. This wine ewer is shaped like a bamboo shoot, but it also resembles a lotus bud. Even though the spout was repaired, the ewer is a celadon masterpiece of the Goryeo period.

Object facts

• Title: Lid for Bamboo Shoot-shaped Ewer
• Date: 1100s
• Culture: Korea, Goryeo dynasty (918–1392)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: earthenware with carved designs and celadon glaze
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1998.289

A detail from the museum

This lid was donated in 1998 for the bamboo-shaped wine pitcher (CMA 1928.179), but it turned out to be too big.

Collection credit

Gift of Sebastian Izzard

Further reading listed by the museum

• Goryeo Dynasty: Korea's Age of Enlightenment, 918-1392. San Francisco: Asian Art Museum, 2003.
• Sŏn, Sŭng-hye. The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2011.
• Goryeo: The Glory of Korea [대고려, 그 찬란한 도전]. Seoul: National Museum of Korea, 2018.

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.