MING DYNASTY, CIRCA 1412 - 1431

A very similar elephant-decorated glazed tile, which was part of an arched door frame from the Bao'en Temple Pagoda (The Porcelain Pagoda) outside Nanjing, was excavated along with two other tiles in 1959, and is illustrated by R.L. Thorp in the exhibition catalogue, Son of Heaven: Imperial Arts of China, Seattle, 1988, p. 114, no. 51. The temple was begun by the Yongle emperor in 1412 and completed in 1431 during the reign of the Xuande emperor. All of the bricks and tiles used in construction of the pagoda were produced by the nearby Imperial kilns. Another very similar tile, also attributed to the Bao'en Temple, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is illustrated by S. Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1989 rev. ed., p. 153, pl. 148.