Spirit House (late 1800s): Art, History and Details

Spirit House (late 1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Many homes in premodern Korean society had a memorial shrine for preparing and holding ancestral rites. Placed on the top of a tall chair, this miniature edifice (called the spirit house) served as a temporary residence for visiting ancestral spirits. On the table, a variety of delicacies such as fruits, rice, meat, and wine would be placed to treat those spiritual guests.

Object facts

• Title: Spirit House
• Date: late 1800s
• Culture: Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: iron inlaid with silver and copper decoration
• Dimensions: Overall: 30 x 35 x 14 cm (11 13/16 x 13 3/4 x 5 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1999.120.1

A detail from the museum

The belief in two types of souls, the spiritual and the corporeal, embodied the core concept of ancestor worship in traditional China and Korea. While the corporeal soul is believed to reside in the tomb, the spiritual soul, in the spirit house, like this example, guards his or her decedents.

Collection credit

Gift of The Honorable Joseph P. Carroll and Roberta Carroll, M.D. in memory of Robert P. Bergman

Further reading listed by the museum

• Deuchler, Martina. “Mourning and Funerary Rites.” In The Confucian Transformation of Korea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 1992.
• 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.