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Panel from Model Cooking Stove: Fairy Feeding Lingzhi Fungus to a Dragon
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Han dynasty tombs were often furnished with grave goods to provide the deceased with items for the afterlife. This panel with a dragon was part of a miniature pottery stove to be placed in a burial chamber. This scene of a dragon being fed fungus by a winged fairy is molded on the panel. The dragon is an auspicious creature and an animal of the cardinal directions that protects the east.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit linePanel from Model Cooking Stove: Fairy Feeding Lingzhi Fungus to a Dragon (陶炉上的 神人喂龍浮雕), 100–1 BCE. China, from a tomb in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, Western Han dynasty (206 BCE–8 CE). Earthenware with impressed relief decoration; 11.5 x 30.8 x 1.3 cm (4 1/2 x 12 1/8 x 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund, 1925.134
