Pillow End-Plaque, Dragon (Begaenmo)
date: label: Accession Date
content: 24 Feb 1886
name: label: Donor Name
content: Ensign U S N John B. Bernadou
notes: label: Notes
content: "Late 19th century. Black-lacquered wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl. This circular pillow plaque is of black-lacquered wood inlaid with a dragon in mother-of-pearl. The scattered dots below the figure of the dragon represent the sea and the rows of horizontal bars the sky. Hough describes "the great dragon rising from the sea into the sky." Another way of interpreting the dotted space below the dragon is that it is the earth, and it is therefore a scene of the great dragon rising into the sky representing spring (Eberhard, 1986: 83). Hough also views the scene as suggestive of spring and adds, "In pure art the whole body of the dragon is not shown, but partly shrouded in clouds." Collected in Seoul. Ref: Hough Korean Catalog pl. XXII, fig. 3; Exhibited "Korean Heritage at the Smithsonian," 16 April-31 May 1988" [from: "An Ethnography of the Hermit Kingdom: The J.B. Bernadou Korean Collection 1884-1885", Chang-su Cho Houchins, 2004, number 110]
label: Record Last Modified
content: 14 Mar 2024
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Korea, Asia
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Not Given
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 016970
label: USNM Number
content: E77032-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Pillow
physicalDescription: label: Diameter
content: 20.4 cm