Chinese soapstone seal with a lion and cub

An image of One of a pair of seals. Red and grey with handles carved as a lion and cub, emblematic of Emperor and Empress. These were used on documents dealing with the appointment of actors on matters relating to the Imperial palace guards, and various minor commands. The characters read:’ Nourish your mind and cultivate your nature’. Soapstone, height 21.4 cm, circa 1800-1900. Chinese.

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.

One of a pair of seals. Red and grey with handles carved as a lion and cub, emblematic of Emperor and Empress. These were used on documents dealing with the appointment of actors on matters relating to the Imperial palace guards, and various minor commands. The characters read:’ Nourish your mind and cultivate your nature’. Soapstone, height 21.4 cm, circa 1800-1900. Chinese.

Image data

Accession Number: O.108A-1946
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Aperture: f/25.0
Focal length: 100
Camera: Canon EOS 5D
Photographer name: Michael Jones
Image height: 1024 pixels
Image width: 638 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.4 (Windows)
Filesize: 454.32kB
Exposure time: 1/100
ISO Speed: 100
Fnumber: 25/1
Captured: 2008:03:11 12:02:33

Key words

19th Century animals carved Chinese Fitz_AA lion cub lions seal soapstone

Citation for print

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


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024)
            "Chinese soapstone seal with a lion and cub"
            Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/image/media-3175089313 Accessed: 2024-12-23 05:06:34

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-3175089313
            |title=Chinese soapstone seal with a lion and cub
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-12-23 05:06:34|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-207156

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/aa37/O_108A_1946_1_200803_mfj22_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Seal"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Chinese soapstone seal with a lion and cub</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>