Cleveland Museum of Art

Basin with Inscribed Figures and Calligraphy

Date

1100s–1200s

Medium

bronze

Culture

Korea, Goryeo dynasty (918–1392)

Department

Korean Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This bronze basin may have been used for containing purified water. What makes this work charming is its intricate decoration done in silver inlay: the five-character, four-line poems interspersed among images of a child. The poems, which evoke the concept of nonattachment and nonduality, were written by Buddhist monks. A child, one of the main decorative elements for this basin, is possibly a young Buddhist pilgrim named Sudhana, who took a long spiritual journey to search for enlightenment.

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