Mirror with Twin Dragons and Lotus Blossoms (1338): Art, History and Details

Mirror with Twin Dragons and Lotus Blossoms (1338) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The mirror features a pair of dragons poised to seize flaming pearls. Blossoms like lotus and chrysanthemum emerge among the dragons. Surrounding the central knob of the mirror is a square enclosing the characters "至元四年 (Fourth Year of Zhiyuan, 1338)." The square also encompasses a barely legible engraving which identifies the workshop in today’s Shanxi province: "White bronze mirror cast under the supervision of retainers from the house of Ma Gouyu in the prefecture of Hezhong."

Object facts

• Title: Mirror with Twin Dragons and Lotus Blossoms
• Date: 1338
• Culture: China, Shanxi province, Hezhong, Yuan dynasty (1271–1368)
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Diameter: 23.4 cm (9 3/16 in.); Overall: 1.1 cm (7/16 in.); Rim: 0.8 cm (5/16 in.)
• Collection: China - Yuan Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1995.388

A detail from the museum

This intricate mirror was donated in honor of Sherman Lee, the museum's longest tenured director.

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, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000.

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.