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Museum Quality Eunjangdo, Korean Silver and Gold Dagger browse these categories for related items... All Items: Korean: Metalwork: Pre 1900: item #600661 Please refer to our stock #0101 when inquiring.
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| Martin Lorber, a featured appraiser on the Antiques Roadshow and the founder of Sotheby's Korean Department, said the following in his appraisal of this museum quality eunjangdo, "This piece is remarkably high quality, indicating that it was made for a person of high rank. The rarity of the piece is evident." Beth McKillop, The Victoria & Albert Museum's Asian Department Director of Collections and Keeper has stated that this is a rare and unique piece. This is certainly the finest eunjangdo we have ever seen, and we have seen the very best in museums and private collections. This eunjangdo from 1830-1890 is a set that includes a pair of silver chopsticks, used by royalty to detect if their food is poisoned. The attachment to the chopstick is a cicada, symbolising immortality. Eunjangdo, an ornamental dagger, was worn mostly by women of rank as a chest pendant and a symbol of their social standing. This dagger also served as a tool to save women from personal humiliation or peril, not by attacking an assailant but by killing themselves, under the Confucian moral obligation of medieval Korea 'to remain faithful to one spouse'. Both the sheath and blade handle are made of silver and gold, meticulously decorated with fascinating designs. What we see on the front is a shangri-la kind of theme, the pine trees and the gold cranes symbolize longevity, and the gold deer symbolize wealth and prosperity. The area below the crane is stylized rockwork. The curly objects with gold wash are clouds. In the past, people believed that when they accumulated enough good deeds in this world, they rode clouds to the sky and became a human Buddha in the next world. Shapes of clouds can also be found on the murals in ancient tombs. On the blade handle we see a gold-washed Moon (the moon's roundness is a symbol of family unity and harmony) and snake’s head. The snake is, according to Joseph Campbell, the ultimate symbol of lunar consciousness, because the snake sheds its skin just as the Moon does. The snake is also spherical, symbolizing the infinite. And ultimately, the snake continues to live in the face of adversity, just as the honorable woman could expect to live on after the self-inflicted honorable death of her physical self, according to the teachings of the time. The pattern on the back is a pullocho plant, which symbolizes wishes come true. Attached at the point where the sheath and the blade handle join, we see a chrysanthemum flower, the Korean symbol of a productive, fruitful life. Kum-Boo (also spelled keum-boo or kum-bu) is a Korean decorative appliqué technique in which pure gold foil is fused onto the surface of finished pure silver objects. The origin and historical development of the kum-boo technique is shrouded in mystery. | ||