展品欣赏

Coffin with painted designs on black lacquer coating Early Western Han dynasty (206 to 163 B. C.) Length 256cm, width 118cm, height 114cm Unearthed from Xin Zhui’s tomb Second outermost coffin. The inside of the coffin is painted in vermilion, and the outside has a black lacquer background painted with bold yet graceful cloud patterns. More than 110 designs of fantastical creatures are interspersed among the clouds, such as “fairy subduing leopard”, “sprite handling snake”, “giant bird carrying fish in beak” and “fairy strumming the guqin.” These fanciful designs are smoothly executed in a vivid style. The sprites, birds and animals all take different forms, and are painted in an incredibly lifelike way, with myriad variations, and have a strong romantic feel to them, highlighting the fertile imagination and well-honed skills of the artisans. The lifelike images of sprites and animals painted on the black lacquer coffin are there to indicate that the spirit of the deceased is entering a realm that is under th