Water Dropper
ca. 1800-1850 (made)
Artist/Maker | |
Place of origin |
Moulded gourd pot, hexagonal, with poetic phrase round the six sides 'qiu yue shui hu jiao ying' (autumn moon and vessel of ice reflect each other), mouth fitted with a fine ivory ring set in gilt foil
Object details
Category | |
Object type | |
Materials and techniques | Gourd, moulded |
Brief description | Water dropper, moulded gourd, China, Qing dynasty, ca. 1800-1850 |
Physical description | Moulded gourd pot, hexagonal, with poetic phrase round the six sides 'qiu yue shui hu jiao ying' (autumn moon and vessel of ice reflect each other), mouth fitted with a fine ivory ring set in gilt foil |
Dimensions |
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Style | |
Credit line | Sir John Addis Gift |
Object history | From Register: Similar washers in the Palace Museum, Beijing (Gugong Bowuyuan Yuankan no. 1, 1979, p. 49) The brush-washer is made from an almost entire gourd completely encased in a sectional mould, with only the junction of the stem cut off to make the mouth. The poem is probably an allusion to a quatrain by the Tang poet Wang Wei. The poet sends news to himself to Loyang by a returning traveller "There is a heart of ice in the vessel of jade". Ice denotes purity and jade other noble qualities. The phrase on the brush-washer thus evokes the correspondence between the austere purity of the scholar's heart (vessel of ice) and the most perfect of all natural phenomena (autumn moon). |
Bibliographic references |
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Collection | |
Accession number | FE.165-1975 |
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Record created | June 25, 2009 |
Record URL |
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