Page 114 - Symbols_of_Identity_Korean_Ceramics_from the Chang Collection

his piece of scholars’ stationery is slightly curved with
Tfive pointed peaks and coated in a bluish-toned glaze.
The base is unglazed, revealing the oxidized orangish surface
of the body material.

Each half made in mold, the seam of this brush stand is ap-
parent along the peaks. It has a hollow space inside, as can be
seen through the hole from which the thermoluminescence
test sample was extracted. The bluish tone of the glaze is due
to its iron content and suggests it was made after the middle
of the eighteenth century.

The handle of a brush, just before where the hairs start,
95. would temporarily rest between two of the peaks of this
Brush stand brush stand when the calligrapher/painter was not using
18th–19th century, Joseon the wet brush, in order to prevent ink from smudging onto
TL results: fired between 250 & 350 years ago the surface of the table. The standard five peaks design of
Porcelain this brush stand comes from China, where the peaks rep-
H: 4.6 cm, W: 9 cm resent the Five Sacred Mountains. More elaborate examples
of Korean water droppers and brush stands, dating to the
nineteenth century, exist and are said to be representations
1
of the Diamond Mountains (Kr: Geumgangsan), located in
present-day North Korea. The mountains have long been ad-
mired for their natural beauty in both Korea and China.

1 Pierre Cambon and Joseph P. Carroll, The Poetry of Ink: The Korean Literati Tradition, 1392-1910.
(Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2005), cats. 40, 41, 45, 46.
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