Water Ewer for Rituals with Incised Parrot Design (lid) (1100s): Art, History and Details

Water Ewer for Rituals with Incised Parrot Design (lid) (1100s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This distinctively shaped celadon vessel is a kundika. With a spout on one side, this type of vessel is often used in Buddhist purification rituals. Unlike most existing examples that have an image of a willow tree, this work has a rare flying phoenix design incised on its surface.

Object facts

• Title: Water Ewer for Rituals with Incised Parrot Design (lid)
• Date: 1100s
• Culture: Korea, Goryeo dynasty (918–1392)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: stoneware with celadon glaze, incised and carved decoration
• Dimensions: Overall: 36.2 x 14 cm (14 1/4 x 5 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Korean Art
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 1921.631.b

A detail from the museum

This distinctively shaped vessel is called a kundika in Sanskrit, simply referring to a water bottle.

Collection credit

Gift of John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, and Jenifer Neils. The World of Ceramics: Masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Museum in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1982.
• Itō, Ikutarō, and Judith G. Smith. Korean Ceramics: From the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.
• Sŏn, Sŭng-hye. The Lure of Painted Poetry: Japanese and Korean Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2011.

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.