Bronze Kundika with Silver Inlaid Landscape Design

Unknown artist

Goryeo Dynasty

Metal - Copper Alloy

National Museum of Korea

A green copper alloy kundika with silver inlaid landscape and bird motifs. The vessel has a bulbous body, a long neck, and a spout. This type of ritual ewer (kundika in Sanskrit) was derived from water bottles used in ancient India, introduced by Brahmans and later used by Buddhist monks. A number of examples have survived from the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392), in both celadon and bronze. This particular ewer is elaborately inlaid with an idyllic waterside landscape, featuring reeds and willows waving in the wind, birds peacefully hovering and floating about, fishermen in a boat, and a nearby hill draped in dense fog. The lines of inlaid silver are exceptionally fine—as thin as 0.5 mm in width—and must have once created a strikingly vivid image against the bronze b