Mirror with Three Pairs of Bixie around a Loti-form Knob (mid-600s): Art, History and Details

Mirror with Three Pairs of Bixie around a Loti-form Knob (mid-600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The casting of this mirror is precise. The central knob is surrounded by 16 petals to assume the appearance of a lotus blossom. In the inner circle, the three pairs of bixie, mythological animals, are displayed in fuller relief and sense of organic coordination than animals in earlier Sui period mirrors, which are slender in proportion and lissome in appearance. The outer circle has a poetic inscription: The spirit merges with the forms that are being wrought. The lustrous metal matches the exquisite craftsmanship. Like a pearl, it emerges from the container box— A virtual moon suspended in the firmament. [It enables] the lady to draw her eyebrows And apply rouge to her face. Even those elegant windows and the embroidered curtains: Can all be reflected within.

Object facts

• Title: Mirror with Three Pairs of Bixie around a Loti-form Knob
• Date: mid-600s
• Culture: China, Tang dynasty (618-907)
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Diameter: 17.6 cm (6 15/16 in.); Overall: 1.5 cm (9/16 in.); Rim: 1.3 cm (1/2 in.)
• Collection: China - Tang Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1995.335

A detail from the museum

A bixie is a fantastical hybrid creature that was believed to ward off evil spirits.

Collection credit

Gift of Drs. Thomas and Martha Carter in Honor of Sherman E. Lee

Further reading listed by the museum

• Chou, Ju-hsi. Circles of reflection: the Carter collection of Chinese bronze mirrors. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000.
• Cahill, Suzanne E. "The Moon Stopping in the Void: Daoism and the LIterati Ideal in Mirrors of the Tang Dynasty." .Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 9 (2005): 24-41.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.