TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)

The poetic inscription on this mirror is purely ornamental and does not relate to the mythical beasts it surrounds. See a related bronze mirror with the same inscription, but decorated with lions and grapevine, in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated in Catalogue of Special Exhibition of Bronze Mirrors in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1986, pp. 150-1, pl. 73.