'Pavillion Scene' panel from one of the Wu Family Shrines (Wu Liang Tzu)
Unidentified Han Dynasty maker, Chinese, 206 BCE - 220 CE
147-168, reproduced 1950s
Rubbing wax on paper
Impression: 24 1/2 × 55 3/8 in. (62.2 × 140.7 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Partial gift of Mrs. George Pettengill Jr., in memory of her sons, George Tilford Pettengill, III (1909-1944), Class of 1932 and William Van Horne Pettengill (1914-1952), Class of 1937 and partial purchase through the Julia L. Whittier Fund
MIS.967.48.12
Geography
Place Made: China, East Asia, Asia
Period
1-500
Object Name
Research Area
Asia
On view
Label
This rubbing was produced from a stone relief in the offering shrine for Wu Liang, a government official who lived during the Han Dynasty. In a two-story pavilion, Wu and his wife are being respectfully served by standing officials. To the left of the pavilion, a mythical fusang 扶桑 tree stands, ten birds hidden among its leaves. Each bird represents a sun. According to Chinese legend, Archer Yi saved the world from drought by shooting nine of the ten bird-suns. The depiction of Archer Yi drawing his bow is rendered above and to the right of the tree.
From the 2024 exhibition Attitude of Coexistence: Non-Humans in East Asian Art, curated by Haely Chang, Jane and Raphael Bernstein Associate Curator of East Asian Art
Course History
HUM 3.02, Two Empires under the Sun, Roberta Stewart and Gil Raz, Spring 2019
Exhibition History
Attitude of Coexistence: Non-humans in East Asian Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 16, 2024-March 1, 2025.
Provenance
Collected by Leila Price Pettengill (1887-1977), Washington, D.C., in China, before 1930; given to present collection, 1967.
Catalogue Raisonne
Wu Hung, The Wu Liang Shrine, Stanford University Press, 1989, Fig. 8, Recess, Rear Wall (Front 3 - 107).
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