Chinese bronze axe decorated with tigers and dragons

An image of Axe head. The blade, socket, and socket cap all one piece of metal. The blade is flanked by two tigers. On the blade is a coiled dragon, a conventionalised dragon's head, and a t'ao t'ieh mask in the piece of blade at the back. On the cap is an elephant's head with horse's legs and a tiger's head at the back. Bronze, height 11.1 cm, length 14.6 cm, circa 500-249 B.C. Chou dynasty (1122-249 BC). Chinese Warring States period.

Terms of use

These images are provided for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons License (BY-NC-ND). To license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who will discuss fees, terms and waivers.

Download this image

Creative commons explained - what it means, how you can use our's and other people's content.

Axe head. The blade, socket, and socket cap all one piece of metal. The blade is flanked by two tigers. On the blade is a coiled dragon, a conventionalised dragon's head, and a t'ao t'ieh mask in the piece of blade at the back. On the cap is an elephant's head with horse's legs and a tiger's head at the back. Bronze, height 11.1 cm, length 14.6 cm, circa 500-249 B.C. Chou dynasty (1122-249 BC). Chinese Warring States period.

Image data

Accession Number: O.192-1946
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Aperture: f/19.0
Focal length: 80
Camera: Hasselblad H3D II-31
Photographer name: Michael Jones
Image height: 805 pixels
Image width: 1024 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.4 (Windows)
Filesize: 556.60kB
Exposure time: 1/8
ISO Speed: 100
Fnumber: 19/1
Captured: 2009:05:19 00:17:21

Key words

animals axe axe head axe-head BC bronze Chinese Chou Dynasty dragons elephants Fitz_AA mask metalwork t'ao t'ieh taotie mask tigers weapon Zhou Dynasty

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024)
            "Chinese bronze axe decorated with tigers and dragons"
            Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-286967566 Accessed: 2024-12-23 10:39:41

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:


            {{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-286967566
            |title=Chinese bronze axe decorated with tigers and dragons
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-12-23 10:39:41|publisher=The
            University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/images/media-201911

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa36/O_192_1946_1_200905_mfj22_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Axe head"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Chinese bronze axe decorated with tigers and dragons</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>