id: 147576 accession number: 1973.74 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1973.74 updated: 2023-03-11 20:51:01.131000 Mirror with Phoenixes, Birds, Butterflies, and Floral Sprays, 700s. China, Tang dynasty (618-907). Bronze with silver and gold inlaid lacquer; diameter: 19.2 cm (7 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1973.74 title: Mirror with Phoenixes, Birds, Butterflies, and Floral Sprays title in original language: 金銀平脫花鳥鏡 series: series in original language: creation date: 700s creation date earliest: 700 creation date latest: 799 current location: 239 Chinese Ceramics and Metalwork creditline: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund copyright: --- culture: China, Tang dynasty (618-907) technique: bronze with silver and gold inlaid lacquer department: Chinese Art collection: China - Tang Dynasty type: Metalwork find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS --- measurements: Diameter: 19.2 cm (7 9/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Mirrors: Art and Symbol opening date: 1984-07-03T04:00:00 Mirrors: Art and Symbol. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 3-November 18, 1984). title: Circles of Reflection: The Carter Collection of Chinese Bronze Mirrors opening date: 2000-09-17T00:00:00 Circles of Reflection: The Carter Collection of Chinese Bronze Mirrors. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 17-November 26, 2000). title: China: The Dawn of the Golden Age (200 - 750 AD) opening date: 2004-10-05T00:00:00 China: The Dawn of the Golden Age (200 - 750 AD). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (October 5, 2004-January 23, 2005). title: Streams and Mountains Without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman E. Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2009-06-27T04:00:00 Streams and Mountains Without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman E. Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 27-August 23, 2009). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE (Yamaoka Seibei, Kyoto, Japan, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) date: ?-1973 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1973- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Mirrors like this have a polished side for viewing and a decorated side with a central knob for lifting. digital description: wall description: This extremely rare pingtuo mirror is coated with a lacquer base inlaid with paper-thin sheets of silver and gold. The decorative patterns, especially the floral arabesques and the phoenixes and birds holding branches in their mouths, have a pronounced Persian and Central Asian flavor. Luxury items like this had been used by the Tang emperor as diplomatic gifts. A similar example from the Japanese imperial collection of Emperor Shōmu was donated by Empress Kōmyō in 756 to the Shōsō-in repository of the Tōdai-ji Temple, Nara, Japan. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS "The Year in Review for 1973." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 2 (1974): 31-78. page number: Mentioned: no. 185, pp. 31 and 79; Reproduced: no. 185, p. 65 url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152513 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. page number: Reproduced: p. 333 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n353 Cunningham, Michael R., Stanislaw J. Czuma, Anne E. Wardwell, and J. Keith Wilson. Masterworks of Asian Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1998. page number: Reproduced: pp. 42-43 url: Chou, Ju-hsi. Circles of reflection: the Carter collection of Chinese bronze mirrors. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000. page number: Reproduced: fig. 1, p. 1 url: Watt, James C. Y., and Prudence Oliver Harper. China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 AD. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004. page number: Reproduced: cat. no. 217, p. 322 url: https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll10/id/56691 Yen, Chuan-Ying. "The Decorative Motifs on Tang Dynasty Mirrors." Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 9 (2005): 1-10. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 5, fig. 8 url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20079750 Chung, Anita. "A Connoisseur's Eye, A Scholar's Mind: The Legacy of Sherman Lee." Orientations vol. 40, no. 5 (2009). page number: Reproduced: p. 30, fig. 4 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1973.74/1973.74_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1973.74/1973.74_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1973.74/1973.74_full.tif