Silver Lidded Bowl with Pear Flower Design

This is a tangi, a lidded bowl for soup, made at the Yi Wangjik Misulpum Jejakso, the royal household's arts-and-crafts production institute, using a forged technique in which the surface was hammered. The pear flower, the emblem of the Korean Empire's imperial household, is engraved in intaglio at the centre of both the lid and the body, while the phrase 萬壽無疆 ("may life be as boundless as ten thousand years") is inlaid in relief on the lid, and a lotus-bud-shaped knob completes the piece — an aesthetic that combines the wish to carry on tradition with practicality. The piece is presumed to date from the 1910s, while the founding aims of the Yi Wangjik Misulpum Jejakso were still being upheld. Given the nature of the collection, which took over relics from Changdeokgung Palace, and the shape of the vessel, it appears to have been used at royal banquets, and the fact that its traces of use remain intact gives it great value for the history of crafts. The Yi Wangjik Misulpum Jejakso was a royal implement-production institute established in 1908 that indirectly expressed the royal family's hope for political restoration while embodying a commitment to maintaining tradition.

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Where it is

Region

Jongno-gu, Seoul

Designation

Registered Cultural Heritage · 국가등록문화유산