{
"data": {
"id": 150857,
"accession_number": "1982.260.a",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Section of a Coffin Platform: Feline, 550\u201377. China, Northern Qi dynasty (550-577). Limestone; overall: 45.7 x 211.4 x 10.8 cm (18 x 83 1/4 x 4 1/4 in.); panel: 45.7 x 27.3 x 10.8 cm (18 x 10 3/4 x 4 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Lange, 1982.260.a",
"current_location": "241B Arts of Ancient China",
"title": "Section of a Coffin Platform: Feline",
"creation_date": "550\u201377",
"creation_date_earliest": 550,
"creation_date_latest": 577,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"China, Northern Qi dynasty (550-577)"
],
"technique": "limestone",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Chinese Art",
"collection": "China - Southern Dynasties",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 45.7 x 211.4 x 10.8 cm (18 x 83 1/4 x 4 1/4 in.); Panel: 45.7 x 27.3 x 10.8 cm (18 x 10 3/4 x 4 1/4 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 0.457,
"height_inch": 18,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 2.114,
"width_inch": 83,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.25,
"depth": 0.108,
"depth_inch": 4,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.25
},
"panel": {
"height": 0.457,
"height_inch": 18,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
"width": 0.273,
"width_inch": 10,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"depth": 0.108,
"depth_inch": 4,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.25
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Oscar [1895\u20131985] and Katharine Gruener Lange [1903\u20131992], Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?\u20131982",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1982\u2013",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [
"82.260"
],
"did_you_know": "The tiger's curved neck and trunk, splayed legs, and spiraled tail merge with the background scrollwork.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "This richly ornamented stone construction is the long, front side of a coffin platform ultimately derived from raised wooden beds that are still popular in China today. Now in five pieces (presumably cut to facilitate transportation after it was excavated in the 1900s), the three legs and horizontal spans may have originally been created as a single massive slab. Sockets cut in the top of the stone (some of which overlap the modern divisions) show how this slab would have been linked to the back with crosspieces also capable of supporting a top surface of flat stone planks.
Like the few examples discovered intact in northern Chinese aristocratic tombs, the most elaborate decoration occurs on the front surface of the coffin platform. The design is dominated by the three large vertical panels, corresponding to the legs, that contain animated high-relief depictions of three directional guardians: the White Tiger of the West, the Red Bird of the South, and the Green Dragon of the East. These three, along with the Snake-Entwined Tortoise of the North and the Yellow Dragon of the Center, were mainstays of Chinese cosmology linked, in a system devised as early as the Han dynasty, to elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water), functions, planets, and musical tones, among others. Not only illustrating the persistent appeal of these traditional apotropaic symbols, this scheme suggests that the platform was placed against the back, northern wall of a tomb that would have been entered from the south. The layered carving technique of these principal motifs as well as the shallow relief dragons, masks, and tendrils engraved in the horizontal spans recall forms found in both imperially sponsored tombs and cave chapels of the late sixth century.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60755991"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Pearlstein, Elinor. \u201cPictorial Stones from Chinese Tombs.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 71, no. 9 (November 1984): 302\u2013331.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 304, fig. 3; pp. 306\u2013307, fig. 8; p. 308, fig. 9; front and back cover",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25159885"
},
{
"citation": "Wilson, J. Keith. \"Powerful Form and Potent Symbol: The Dragon in Asia.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77, no. 8 (October 1990): 286\u2013323.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 302, fig. 20 and p. 319, cat. no. 30",
"url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25161297"
},
{
"citation": "Cunningham, Michael R., Stanislaw J. Czuma, Anne E. Wardwell, and J. Keith Wilson. Masterworks of Asian Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1998.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 38\u201339",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Juliano, Annette L., Judith A. Lerner, Jean-Marie Simonet, and Marielle Tardy. Ritual Objects and Early Buddhist Art. Belgium: Gis\u00e8le Cro\u00ebs, 2004.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 16, fig. 3, and p. 17, fig. 6 (1982.260.a and 1982.260.e only)",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1982.260.a",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
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"height": "893",
"filesize": "128852",
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"print": {
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"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Lange",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": "Clara T. Rankin Galleries of Chinese Art",
"athena_id": 150857,
"creators": [],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1982-12-20T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 550,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "550\u201377",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "part",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": "1982.260",
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-07-25 11:42:21.306000"
}
}