Mirror with Linked Arcs and Dragons
- Date
-
制作年 Warring States period−Western Han dynasty （3ー2nd century B.C.)
- Title
- レンコモンエンリュウモンキョウ
- Measurements
- D. 15.8
- Materials, techniques and shape
- Bronze
- Collections
- Century Akao Collection
- Depository
- Keio Museum Commons Campus Mita
- Ref. number
- AW-CEN-000082-0000
- License
- CC BY Images license
- Creditline
-
慶應義塾（センチュリー赤尾コレクション）
- URL
- Classification
- Art
- AI Tagging
- Art Circle Pattern Ceiling Electric blue
This mirror is decorated with a bold design of three coiling dragons. There is a Chinese legend that the fabled Yellow Emperor was the first who started casting mirrors, but it is not clear when exactly mirrors were first used. It is thought that they began to be used at least from the Shang dynasty (16th–11th century BC), not only as daily objects to reflect an image, but also as ceremonial objects in rituals. The surface of the mirror was polished with a knob attached in the center on the back to pass a string through.
The mirror is smooth and thin. The rim is covered by overlapping circles, the inside is covered with a design of small spirals, and in the center there are three triangular knobs. These stylistic features belong to an ancient style, and the mirror is believed to have been produced from the Warring States period (475–221 BC) to the Western Han dynasty (220 BC–9 AD). Mirrors with banded decorations and kanji (Chinese characters) inscriptions were first made only several centuries later, during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 AD).
Description from the exhibition Catalogue "Letter-scape: Century Akao Collection, A World of Letters and Figures", Keio Museum Commons, April 2021
One design feature of ancient mirrors that changed from the Period of Warring States to the Former Han Dynasty was the decoration of the mirror’s edge or rim. The edge was not elaborately decorated during the Warring States era, except for carved spoon-like undulations. During the Former Han Dynasty, however, many mirror rims were decorated with linked bows. The mirror exhibited here shows a relatively ancient arrangement of dragons on a spiral base pattern. Representative of the era (Han Dynasty), the mirror’s edge is decorated with linked bows.
Overview
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Depository and ID
Components
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Details
Identifiers
- Title (EN)
- Mirror with Linked Arcs and Dragons
Physical description
- Weights and quantities
-
Quantity 1面
- Materials, techniques and shape
-
Materials 錫水銀膜あり
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