mahjong tiles

Phoenix and Peony in Chinese Art and Mahjong Part 2

Kuan Yin • April 10, 2014

This lovely porcelain (from Clars Auction House dating from the Republic period) ) shows us a phoenix (actually there are a couple you can see, one is hidden on the far right) standing near a peony, a common theme on porcelains.

Another standing phoenix with peony, this time from Christies.

But here we have a lovely French Ivory standing phoenix, with peony, sent to us by reader Laurie!

It's a lot of detail to fit on one small tile.

This fabulous Mahjong box is inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Isn't it magnificent? You will notice the two phoenixes up at the top, surrounding an irregular round shaped object. I would venture to guess that the brass is a stylized peony. Peony brass hardware similar to that is still made today, so it may not be as wild a guess as it would seem! On top of the brass, of course, is a bat. The bat also appears on the bottom of the cabinet, probably between two plum blossoms. Plum blossoms can be recognized by their five petals.

Dragons in Chinese Art and Mahjong Part 4

Kuan Yin • April 1, 2014

These beautiful lacquer racks belonging to Katherine Hartman showcase some of the wonderful painting you can see on Mahjong accessories. Very talented artists designed and painted racks. The type seen here has a top shelf that slides back to reveal betting counters stored within. On the above racks, your eye would have been quickly drawn, by the brightness of the color and the wonderful design, to the dragons and pearl rack, second from the top. We already touched upon this topic, and here we will explore it a bit more in depth in connection with the dragon series, having to do with Mahjong accessories and the dragon and "pearl" pairing.

According to Patricia Bjaaland Welch in Chinese Art A guide to Visual Motifs and Visual Imagery, the pairing of dragons and pearls (or round disk or jewel) started in the Tang Dynasty (which ran from 618 until 906). She feels Robert D. Mowry offers the right explanation, that the dragon and disk represent elements from two traditions, the dragon from Chinese mythology and the jewel from Buddhism. The "pearl" may not actually be a pearl but a talismanic jewel that symbolizes wisdom. Welch adds the jewel often is seen surrounded by flames, adding to the belief that it represents the sun, but flames are often seen in Buddhist art, symbolizing magical powers.

We saw this dragon robe (Qing Dynasty) from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on an earlier post. You'll note here the dragon is surrounding a flaming object. Here it certainly does not resemble a pearl, but more like a disk, adding credence to the disk or jewel interpretation.

Above is a porcelain bowl from the Lucas Collection. You'll see a round disk, somewhat resembling a sand dollar, right in front of the dragon.

Above is another lacquer rack, quite different in appearance than the first dragon rack we saw. The dragons are hidden in the clouds, represented by the circular swirls. Two dragons surround the flaming disk; this type of two dragon rack is used by three out of the four players at a table.

The original East player has one with just one dragon.

And another wonderful dragon and "pearl" screen shot. Come visit the site tomorrow for another "photograph screen shot" and the information behind it.

Dragons in Chinese Art and Mahjong Part 3 • 1 Comment

Kuan Yin • March 31, 2014

Yesterday we touched upon reasons Mahjong sets become objects of desire. For many collectors, these dragons made by the Coronet Company, are the selling points. Who can resist these smoke blowing creatures?

These Dragons above, from an unknown manufacturer, have many of the features we have seen before, including horns and whiskers. Interestingly, the White Dragon is not a Dragon at all but a snake, one of the five poisonous creatures, often embroidered on children's clothing to ward off venomous dangers! The White Dragon appears a bit like some of the very elongated dragons we have seen before. The two Dragons have four toes, so these dragons were allowed to be used by low ranking officials. (Welch)

This Cardinal Company pair above has a red elongated Dragon as the Red, and the more squat Green one, very similar to that of the Royal Depth Control Dragon, seen below.

But look at these last two Green Dragons, they aren't like any dragons we have seen before! Why? We have yet to see a dragon with wings!! This must have been an attempt to appeal to the Western market, and was a real departure from Chinese dragons.

To refresh what Chinese dragons look like, we have a porcelain from the Lucas Collection ( as far as I can gather Lucas was the Director of the Asian Art Institute in Australia. ) Note the absence of wings on the dragon.

To end this post, look carefully at this screenshot of a photograph of a Dragon in China. More information and leads will be forthcoming, in a few days.

Mahjong tiles courtesy of Mahjongmahjong.

Dragons in Chinese Art and Mahjong

Kuan Yin • March 29, 2014

We have touched upon the importance of the dragon in Chinese mythology and art before on this website, but here we will go into greater detail.

The dragon has long been important to the Chinese. According to Patricia Bjaaland Welch in Chinese Art A Guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery, the dragon is the highest ranking animal in the animal hierarchy, and it has been loved throughout Chinese history. The dragon in the photograph above, in the collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is an example of an early dragon. It's a vessel with a dragon's head, dating from the Western Jin Dynasty which ran from 265 until 316.

The Dragon is typically shown in profile, but as we saw on some photographs which appeared on this website, it often is facing the viewer. This is especially the case on Imperial robes; given that this creature was long associated with the Imperial family, it is no surprise its image appears on many objects associated with the life of the royal family.

The above robe is from the Metropolitan Museum's collection. It dates from the Qing Dynasty which lasted from 1644 until 1911.

Does this look familiar? Here the Imperial Dragon is the inside of a Mah Jongg box.

And here it is the rule book for the set.

Another dragon, auctioned off by Sothebys, this time is the top of a container. Its body is wrapped around the neck. He bears a certain resemblance to the bone and bamboo tile which follows it.

This wonderful mahjong dragon is almost facing us. You can only see some of its body because the rest is obscured by clouds.

Don't you love the claws sticking out of the clouds?

But more often we see the dragon in profile, or in a partial side view. Following are two such dragons.

These White Dragons were carved by Dee Gallo. You can notice the whiskers, and long body; the red feet are the best!

According to Welch, the traditional Chinese dragon has body parts from nine different animals "the head of a camel, horns of a deer, eyes of a rabbit, ears of a cow, neck of a snake, belly of a frog, scales of a carp, claws of a hawk, and palm of a tiger." It may be hard to see all of those aspects of the dragon's body, especially on small Mahjong tiles, but it is easy to see the camel head, the horns of a deer, and the scales of a carp on the tiles above.

And of course you remember these wonderful dragons, from an earlier post:

and

These dragons are showing four toes, which is significant in Chinese art. (Of course every detail is significant in Chinese art!)

The bone and bamboo tiles are from the Katherine Hartman collection.

The Phoenix in Chinese Art and Mahjong Part 1

Kuan Yin • March 26, 2014

The phoenix, which only appears in times of fair and just rulers, is associated with peaceful and happy times. Patricia Bjaaland Welch's book: Chinese Art A Guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery is the source for the art information in this post. She writes the phoenix is known in China as the king of the birds, but its origins are complex. Today the phoenix is considered to be a combination of several creatures: the head of a pheasant, the body of a duck, the legs of a crane, the tail feathers of a peacock, the mouth of a parrot and the wings of a sparrow. The female phoenix has a tail with two feathers, and the male has one with five feathers. When a phoenix is paired with another mythological creature, a dragon, the phoenix automatically becomes the female partner.

Most of you are familiar with this symbol that appears on the early sets made by the Mah-Jongg Sales Company of America, that was discussed earlier on this blog. It was simply the Chinese Character for the male phoenix.

Nowadays we call it the Green Dragon, and many of today's players are unaware of this different character that served as the Green at the beginning of the Mahjong craze.

In the earliest days of Chinese art, the phoenix was shown as a striding creature with outstretched wings, up until close to 600 AD, perhaps a bit of a version of this One Bam, though of course this one does not have outstretched wings:

The jaunty attitude of this bird is enchanting.

The next Chinese Bakelite One Bam features another phoenix, posing with leg raised in a similar way to what we often see with peacock One Bams.

The two feathers reveals it to be a female. (It is from the personal collection of mahjongmahjong.)

Later on in time, during the Tang Dynasty the phoenix was depicted in flight, and by the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1126) it was shown rising in flight with legs tucked up.

On the above lovely hanging dating from the Song Dynasty in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we see the phoenix on the left; the two feathers indicate a female. Interestingly, the tail does not have the peacock-like look to them we normally see.

A bit later in time we see the above panel dating from the Ming Dynasty in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The phoenix now looks a lot different, and its tail has the more ornate feathers we expect. Look carefully and you will see four phoenixes.

In yesterday's blog we discussed Five Bats which are symbolic of the Five Blessings: old age, wealth, health, love of virtue and a natural death, an image that frequently appears in Chinese art. The rare dish below was auctioned off at Sothebys. Five bats surround a stylized Shou in the center, and although hard to see the "cavetto," the part of the plate surrounding the center flat part, has three phoenixes. Note they only have two tail feathers, and thus are females.

Below is a version of a flying phoenix on a Mahjong tile

It is a female, and she looks it, doesn't she?

Below is the accompanying bird from the same set:

You can see the similarities to the phoenix, but it really is a pheasant, indicated by the feathers that don't resemble those of peacocks.

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Bats Part 2 • 1 Comment

Kuan Yin • March 22, 2014

Bats are well loved by the Chinese, and frequently appear in art. This exquisite porcelain, up for auction at Christies, NY, is expected to bring in over $800,000. You can see bats soaring every which way, including toward the viewer.

Here is a screen shot of the vase:

If you would like to hear an audio description of this vase, click here

In Mahjong, sometimes bats are quite easy to see, as we saw yesterday. But sometimes, as in life, the viewer needs to work a bit harder to find them.

They can be found on White Dragons.

The following are from the Mahjongmahjong collection. All of these are Chinese Bakelite, but they might be found on bakelite White Dragons too.

Look at the eyes on the top and bottom of the tile above

You can see two here pretty easily

and here too

The above tile may well be a bat.

We don't know, but these shapes at the corner of this hybrid bamboo set might be bats, or coins as Michael Stanwick speculated, or perhaps even both!

The next two bone and bamboo tiles are from Katherine Hartman's collection. This time they are on One Dots.

You can see the bats, with their pointy ears and triangular faces, at the top and bottom of the tile, spreading out their wings. They surround two peaches and a Lu symbol. According to Ray Heaton, who translated and interpreted the characters and their meanings

"This tile shows three things, the Bats, Fu, the Peach for longevity, Shou, and the Chinese character 祿, Lu, for Prosperity. So this one tile has all it needs to provide the interpretation of Fu Lu Shou.

Blessings, prosperity, and longevity"

And for another One Dot tile Ray has helped again:

"The bats (fu) surround two peaches and a fu symbol. The sound Fu means prosperity, so we have double prosperity and longevity symbols."

Please email us if you have any bats on mahjong tiles in your collection

kuanyinart@gmail.com

Bats Part 1

Kuan Yin • March 21, 2014

The Chinese consider bats to be good luck, and they are symbols of a long life and happiness. In Chinese, the word for "bat" is the same sound as the one for "good fortune." Bats were thought to live for a thousand years.

You will often see a bat on a tile, sometimes readily identifiable and sometimes so stylized it is hard to see. Today we will see a few easily recognizable ones. Many have ears and even whiskers, making them quite endearing.

The tile above from a Shanghai Luck Set has two bats, one on each side of the Wan. Paired with the peaches on the top and bottom of the tile, the tile augers well for longevity.

This bat is a bit more stylized, though recognizable. Note the rounded shapes to the left in front of the bat, and to the right behind it, symbolizing clouds.

The bat on the above tile is one of four flying creature tile Flowers in a set; the other three are birds.

Above is a similar one from Katherine Hartman's collection. You will notice that each bat is cropped by the tree. The tree, a pine, is another symbol for longevity.

Bats appear in many forms of Chinese art, and they were deemed important from very early days. Here are some captured on robes made for royalty.

This robe, auctioned off at Sothebys during Asia Week 2014, is an Imperial robe from the 19th Century. You can see a bat flying toward the upper left.

The beautiful robe below was shown by Alan Kennedy in his Asia Week Exhibition : Qing Dynasty Women Concubines & Meiren.

The bat is flying just above the dragon.

There are some other fabulous robes in the Metropolitan Museum collection.

The garment above uses peacock feathers twisted into silk thread for the embroidery, a technique dating from the fifth Century. The bat is just over the dragon's head.

A better view of the greens:

Bats remain important to Chinese culture. Here's a different kind of robe done by the artist Wang Jin in Dreams of China. The pvc robe is embroidered with fishing line to create the patterns.

Don't forget the bats!

Please email us if you have any recognizable bats in your mahjong collection.

kuanyinart@gmail.com

Links Between Flower Tiles and Chinese Art Part 4

Kuan Yin • March 20, 2014

In Chinese art there is no requirement that an object be seen in its entirety, and this idea has existed for hundreds of years. In landscapes, water scenes with boats, mountains and rock outcroppings with trees often appear, sometimes in simplified form.

These two tiles are from a Chinese Bakelite set. You can see the boat continues from one tile to the next, but still not seen in its entirety. Notice how a tree trunk is captured on the right tile.

This special ink and color scroll was painted by Zhang Daqian (Chang Dai-chien) who lived from 1899 until 1963. It is entitled The Bridge to Eternity. You can see a lone fisherman in his boat at the water's edge, with the boat somewhat hidden behind a small projection of the landscape. But objects don't have to be hidden to be simplified:

(This tile is not half of a two tile set)

There is no need to show the whole object if people can figure out what it is.

Looking at these tiles again you can note how here too boats are somewhat hidden by land outcropping, with trees along the rocky shoreline and mountains. You will see a partial bridge on the lower left tile, a structure also seen on the Zhang Daqian scroll above.

Links Between Flower Tiles and Chinese Art Part 3

Kuan Yin • March 19, 2014

From the Metropolitan Museum website:

"Images of nature have remained a potent source of inspiration for artists down to the present day. While the Chinese landscape has been transformed by millennia of human occupation, Chinese artistic expression has also been deeply imprinted with images of the natural world. Viewing Chinese landscape paintings, it is clear that Chinese depictions of nature are seldom mere representations of the external world. Rather, they are expressions of the mind and heart of the individual artists—cultivated landscapes that embody the culture and cultivation of their masters."

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/clpg/hd_clpg.htm

The artist who carved these bone and ebony tiles created designs similar to those done by other Chinese artists who worked in other media such as watercolors and ink drawing. Objects were captured with a few strokes giving the viewer all necessary clues to know what was depicted.

Here are two works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

The artist has captured the essence of the scene, with a fisherman in a boat halfway up on the left, and two bridges, one in the forefront and one in the center.

This beautiful work features sailboats in the distance. The boats in each help to fill the void created by the water, fitting in with Chinese design principles.

This from the Metropolitan Museum website describing these works:

"In 1691 Wang Hui, the leading artist of his day, was summoned to Beijing to oversee the creation of a mammoth imperial commission documenting the Kangxi emperor's southern inspection tour of 1689. The painting, consisting of twelve monumental handscrolls, is the largest pictorial work of the Qing dynasty. (The Metropolitan owns one scroll from this set; acc. no. 1979.5.) Since the finished set bears no artists' signatures or seals, it is only through group works such as the Museum's new acquisition that the identity of Wang's artistic team can be established. The album, in which four younger artists from Wang's home region practiced the methods of ancient artists, is a rare example of a master painter's having recruited assistants and shaped their style to conform to the orthodox manner, which epitomized scholarly taste at that time. This academic style became the hallmark of all later Qing court commissions.

The leaf illustrated here, Mountain Waterfall, is by Wang Hui's leading disciple, Yang Jin, who has inscribed it with a poem:

For ten days spring clouds have obscured the stream's source;
In the middle of the night a west wind brings rain to the [mountain's] foot.
But I feel the urgent thunder roar in the empty valley,
So from a distance I know that the myriad gorges are competing in their flows."

Anyone else notice the artist wrote a poem on the painting? It is just like the carvers who added poems and sayings on many of our Mahjong tiles!

This paraphrase from the Ink Dance Chinese Paintings's website helps to explain the reliance on boats in waterscape scenes:

When painting a landscape scene featuring water, a mountain is the face, buildings on ridges are the eyes and a fisherman in a boat is the soul. Water becomes charming when it embellishes a mountain; it becomes clear when it has buildings near it; it shows greater perspective when there are boats.

Following are examples of some boats on Mahjong tiles.

You can see different boats on these tiles, a sailboat and some small fishing boats.

A sailboat from The Pung Chow Company

And a small Chinese Bakelite boat

Links Between Flower Tiles and Chinese Art Part 2

Kuan Yin • March 18, 2014

This beautiful screen is on view at Sothebys, for Asia Week. It dates from the late 18th to early 19th Century. Here is a somewhat blurry detail.

You can see a similar kind of boat on these Flower tiles:

Note also the trees along the shoreline on the screen and the tiles. On the screen detail you also see some diaper patterns just above the boat. We see those patterns on boxes, just like the one below, used as trim around the window.

The scene above may be from Romance of the Three Kingdoms. You can see people on the top of the city wall, just as we see on some of the Empty City Tiles:

and below from the mahjongmahjong collection

You will see some other elements often carved into Flower tiles on this beautiful scroll, painted by Lan Ying who lived from 1585 until 1666.

The bridge, the boat, the trees and rocks along the shoreline, all were important to Mahjong craftsmen who had a thorough knowledge of Chinese art.

Mahjong Treasures

Appreciating the Art of Mahjong; A Collector's Guide