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Unknown
(Maker)
Unglazed grey earthenware tomb tile, which originally faced the interior or a Han brick tomb. With impressed and incised designs of a winged horse and a tree in which a bird perches. Above the horse, another slightly different winged creature hovers. The tile still has traces of red, white and light yellow paint, and also in the upper left hand corner of the tree a wooden stamp impression remains.
According to William White, a lute made from the wood of the Wu t'ung tree would cure the sick, quiet the restles spirit, and draw the fairies and phoenixes to the music. Down through the ages coffins made of its wood ensured peace of the departed spirit. The bird in the tree is perhaps a phoenix, for this bird of good omen would only rest in the Wu t'ung tree.
History note: Probably from the area of Qincun, Loyang in Henan.
Bequeathed by Mrs Walter Sedgwick through National Art Collections Fund
Height: 40.6 cm
Length: 44.4 cm
Relative size of this object is displayed using code inspired by Good Form and Spectacle's work on the British Museum's Waddeson Bequest website and their dimension drawer. They chose a tennis ball to represent a universally sized object, from which you could envisage the size of an object.
Method of acquisition: Bequeathed
(1968-02-01)
by
Sedgwick, Walter, Mrs
Han Dynasty (BC 206 - AD 220)
Circa
-0202
-
-0220
Decoration
Accession number: C.2-1968
Primary reference Number: 17472
Stable URI
Owner or interested party: The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department: Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
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The Fitzwilliam Museum (2022)
"Tile"
Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/17472 Accessed: 2022-05-17 18:04:38
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/17472|title=Tile|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2022-05-17 18:04:38|publisher=The University of Cambridge}}
To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:
<div class="text-center my-3">
<figure class="figure">
<img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa20/C_2_1968.jpg"
alt="Tile" class="img-fluid" />
<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Tile</figcaption>>
</figure>
</div>
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