Artworks

Wrapping cloth with design of conversing sages and grape vines

Artwork · Anonymous · 8th century · textile · Tōdai-ji Temple

A soft leather cloth, probably the cover of a rectangular box, dyed with scrolling grape vines — a motif from far west along the Silk Roads — and at both ends the same scene: two Chinese sages divided by a tree, each seated on a rocky outcrop, one playing the qin. 1 Mason 2005, p. 53, fig. 57. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.