Kundika with Waterside Landscape Design

Goryeo · 국보 · 3F · Sculpture and Crafts · Metal Crafts

A kundika is a bottle for holding clean water; originally one of the eighteen possessions a monk was to keep, it gradually came to be used for the pure water offered before the Buddha. True to Goryeo-period kundikas, it has an egg-shaped body, a smoothly tapering long neck topped by a spout-tube, and a hairpin-like pouring spout projecting from one side of the body. Its surface captures a waterside scene like a painting—willows trailing over a bank, a fisherman rowing, an angler—all rendered in the silver-inlay technique, in which grooves are carved and silver wire is hammered in. Today the silver set against the body's blue-green patina creates a distinctive atmosphere.

See it in person at the National Museum of Korea — 3F · Sculpture and Crafts · Metal Crafts

Source: based on official e-museum records (National Museum of Korea).