White Porcelain Brush Container with Plum and Bamboo Design in Relief

Joseon Period (19th Century)

This cylindrical brush holder (piltong) is articulated on the exterior with a single incised line encircling both the upper and lower registers. The surface between is divided into two panels, each decorated in relief: one panel bears a branch of plum blossoms in full bloom, while the other depicts stalks of bamboo rising with vigorous, upward energy. The glaze is a white porcelain glaze with a faint suffusion of pale blue — limpid and evenly lustrous. The base is wiped free of glaze, and traces of fine sand kiln supports on which the piece was fired remain on the foot. Brush holders were traditionally fashioned from bamboo and similar natural materials, but with the flourishing of scholarly desk objects from the late eighteenth century into the nineteenth, white porcelain examples came into widespread production and use. This piece, produced at the Bunwon-ri kiln in Gwangju during the first half of the nineteenth century, is distinguished by the refined accord between its crystalline blue-white glaze and its composed, dignified form — a work of quiet scholarly elegance entirely in keeping with the Confucian literati culture it was made to serve.