LATE EASTERN HAN-EARLY SIX DYNASTIES PERIOD OR LATER

The present iron mirror has a thin gold sheet overlay with a cut-out design based on the cast design of Eastern Han (AD 25-220) bronze mirrors, represented by two published examples: one excavated from a Han-dynasty tomb at Shaoxing in Zhejiang province and now in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Ancient Bronze Mirrors from the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, 2005, pp. 190-91, pl. 58; the other illustrated by Lothar von Falkenhausen, The Lloyd Cotsen Study Collection of Chinese Bronze Mirrors, vol. I, Los Angeles, 2009, pp. 164-65, pls. 68 and 69.

The design on the bronze prototypes and the present gold and iron mirror reflects a Daoist influence found on some mirrors of late Eastern Han date. On each mirror the design is arranged in quadrants defined by four nipples within bead circles. In one quadrant is Xiwangmu (Queen Mother of the West) seated on a lotus, and in the opposite quadrant sits Dongwanggong (Royal Father) on a mat above lotus, both powerful Daoist deities that represent the western and eastern directions and also yin and yang. They are flanked by attendants. In each of the other two quadrants on the Shanghai mirror is a carriage drawn by five galloping horses, the motif repeated in one quadrant of the Cotsen mirror, while in the opposite quadrant is a row of six horses, four with riders, below a row of five horses. On each of these mirrors the main field of decoration is encircled by decorative, outer bands, which includes an inscription on the Cotsen mirror. Another gold foil-decorated iron mirror with similar cut-out decoration is in the Freer Gallery of Art, reference F1946.7.