Arts of Refinement: Lacquer and Metalwares of Koryŏ

This chapter draws on past and current scholarship in its discussion of Koryo metal and lacquer artifacts. With their long history of manufacture under royal governance, metal and lacquer wares offer rich scope for exploring the ways in which Koryo art evolved over time. The chapter analyses representative dated and undated examples from important periods of the almost‐five‐hundred‐year rule of the Koryo kingdom. Nowadays, Koryo artifacts tend to be grouped as fine art, crafts items and everyday items. According to the Flower Garland Sutra, one of the most influential Buddhist scriptures within Mahayana Buddhism, a monk should carry eighteen objects, including a bottle for clean drinking water. The Tang Chinese monk Yijing wrote in detail about such water bottles in diaries that recorded twenty‐five years of travels in India. The shapes he described resemble the kundika that were manufactured in Koryo workshops