Box with design of boys and lions

Artwork · Anonymous · 8th century · box · Museum of the Imperial Collections

A Tang Chinese lacquer box, inlaid in mother-of-pearl on all four sides with boys playing with lions: the lion from Sassanian art, the boys the Daoist symbol of eternal youth. Made for the Japanese market of the period; originally kept at Hōryūji. 1 Mason 2005, p. 51, fig. 55. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.