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Scremetsutracoverwithphoenixesandauspiciousfungusmingn Shot 2014-04-26 at 8.47.34 AM

Here we have a piece of fabric dating from the Ming Dynasty in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Here you can see stylized phoenixes and ruyi, the scepter based on lingzhi, the herb of immortality, that oval organic form that looks like it is folded in on itself.

 

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This is a scepter auctioned off by Christies.  It is a ruyi, and thus is associated with immortality, good luck and power. This shape can appear in many aspects of Chinese art, including Mahjong.

 

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The box above was auctioned off by Kaminski Auctioneers.  Its handle is shaped like a ruyi. The set was owned by Marla Maples, the former wife of Donald Trump. It is now part of a major private Mahjong collection.

 

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This exquisite dragon Mahjong box also features ruyi, certainly toward the lower left and right center, but probably above, hiding part of the right side of the dragon as well.

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This detail is of a sutra cover in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dating from the Ming Dynasty, it shows flowers, the round shapes, and lingzhi, the one toward the lower right.

As many of you know, lingzhi is a fungus, considered to be the Plant of Immortality. (C.A. S. Williams) It is so revered by the Chinese that often it was preserved and stored in temples, or copies of it might be made and placed there.

The heads of scepters were based on lingzhi. These scepters are called ruyi.

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You can see how the head of the scepter has a very organic look to it. The ruyi became associated with power, and good luck and blessings. (Wiki)  Ruyi appears in Mahjong too, on tiles and on boxes. Often it is hard to see because it is so stylized, but if you look hard enough, you can see it.

Ruyi can come in the shape of clouds:

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On this side of a Mahjong box we looked at before, we see this magnificent dragon. His leonine head is in the center of the design, and his body surrounds it.  But what is in the background? Ruyi shaped clouds! Those clouds take up most of the space around him.

 

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On the back of this same box you can see the dragon, once again surrounded by clouds shaped like ruyi! ( I still love that fish involved with his inhale or exhale. Perhaps fish and dragons can be another post some day!)

 

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These are two sets of Flowers from a Chinese Bakelite set that has 16 Flowers. Above we see above some gods on ruyi shaped clouds.

 

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We also have some gods here. The two men in the middle are the He-Hes, the heavenly twins. The two tiles at either end of the row also have a bit of extra meaning. The one on the right is the magic bowl, often seen containing the lotus (left) and the herb of immortality, which here is represented by the clouds! The bowl, lotus and lingzhi mean "concord as your hear desires" according to Wolfram Eberhard. The He Hes are associated with marital harmony, so these Flowers bode well for happiness within the home.

(After writing this, I used the app Pleco, available for ipad, and got the translation which worked with the visual interpretations of the bottom tiles, from left to right:  harmony, combine, two, celestials!)

 

A book by this author and Ann Israel is entitled Mah Jongg The Art of the Game.

You can read reviews on the book's website and find author appearances:

www.mahjonggtheartofthegame.com

You can order it by clicking here

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mah-jongg-ann-israel/1118759459?ean=9784805313237

or here

http://www.amazon.com/Mah-Jongg-Collectors-Guide-Tiles/dp/4805313234/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414929693&sr=8-1&keywords=mah+jongg+the+art+of+the+game

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The other day we had the good fortune to study photographs of a set sent to us by Bill Price. You will remember the tiles in that set are quite special: the One Bam is a phoenix and the One Dot a dragon.  If any of you missed it, click here for a real treat.

The dragon and phoenix are a lucky pairing in Chinese art. When seen together, the dragon becomes male, and the phoenix female, and thus they represent good wishes for a happy marriage.

 

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The above platter from the Lucas Collection in Australia shows the two of them, interestingly surrounding a flaming "pearl." The dragon has five toes, putting him in the category of an object that could be owned or worn by a member of the royal family; his whiskers, horns and chops are easily seen; his scales and serpentine body complete the look. The phoenix has a colorful tail and body, and the colors used make her most feminine indeed. They both have flames around them, those orange spiky squiggles. The platter is surrounded by meanders.

 

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You will remember one of the first mahjong sets that was mass produced was made by the Mah-Jongg Sales Company of America. The Green (Dragon) actually is the symbol for phoenix but

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the Red (Dragon) is the Chinese word for dragon. So even at the dawn of the game its designers felt it was beneficial to have the good omens of this pairing.

 

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The above coin (from Baldwin's Auction House in Hong Kong) was issued in 1923, the very same year that the Mah-Jongg Sales Company really took the world by storm when it started exporting sets in big numbers to the States and elsewhere. Notice that  pairing of the dragon and phoenix. The MJSA, when it used that pairing on its "Dragons"  was probably hoping to create a happy marriage between the Mah-Jongg Sales Company and the players using its sets, rules and scoring system.

 

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The good fortune of the pairing continues today. Here are two sides of the same coin, of recent minting. You see the pairing of the dragon and phoenix on the left and that other, all important symbol of China, the Great Wall. Given that the dragon is associated with power and the ruler of China, and the Great Wall certainly represents strength, it is not surprising to find these two symbols on the same coin.  Don't forget the phoenix only appears in times of a just ruler, so we have a lot of important symbolism on one coin.

 

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Our reader Katherine Hartman has found the ornate boxes seen above that she uses to house Mahjong sets. You will note the phoenix on the top of the box, and dragons surrounding the sides. As many of you already know, very few boxes were made expressly for Mahjong tiles in the early days of the game; rather other boxes had to be adapted. Some of you probably have to do that these days yourselves, when faced with the sad deterioration of some vintage and antique boxes, so the tradition of adapting boxes for new uses exists today. And should you find boxes that have the wonderful dragon and phoenix pairing, the tiles will have a happy home indeed.

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This fabulous dragon box was auctioned off at the China Arts Auction. Look at the magnificent handle. The dragon's face is at one end, and his scaly body is the handle. and the other end has his tail curled back upon his body.

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Here you can clearly see the sculptural quality of the handle which was attached to the top of the box, and not carved as one piece as we saw yesterday, and the rest of the deeply carved box.

 

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Here's another view of the dragon box we saw the other day, sent to us by a reader. This dragon is fabulous: look at his head with its horns, whiskers, bulging eyes, and open mouth with teeth; his long scaly body with dorsal fin, and his hawklike feet with at least one prominent foot on the left with its claws. It is frolicking in the clouds, as can be seen by curlicued cloud-like shapes surrounding him, but look carefully at the smoke he is breathing, and what do you see? A fish!

"A frequently seen image is of a carp swimming and leaping against the current of a river to reach the spawning grounds.  This refers to the legend (liyutiaolongmen 鲤鱼跳龙门) that a carp which is able to leap over the mythical "Dragon Gate" will become a dragon.  This is an allegory for the persistent effort needed to overcome obstacles."  From Primaltrek

http://primaltrek.com/impliedmeaning.html

 

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This very sculptural looking dragon looks like he could be on a Mahjong box. This photograph is an indication of the interest the Chinese still have in the dragon as a beloved and important part of their culture. Above is a screen shot somewhat cropped version of a photograph taken by Andy Wong. It's a 3D trompe l'oeil dragon painting or chalk drawing.

Andy Wong's website:

http://www.commercialappeal.com/photos/2013/aug/11/455548/

And we can't leave without one more photograph of Liu Bolin, who is posed in front of the 9 Dragon Wall in Beihai Park in Beijing. From Wikipedia:

"The Nine-Dragon Wall lies north of the Five-Dragon Pavilion. It was built in 1402 and is one of three walls of its kind in China. It is made of glazed bricks of seven-colors. Nine complete dragons playing in the clouds decorate both sides of the wall."

To read more about the park:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beihai_Park

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The very sculptural dragon is very reminiscent of all the deeply carved dragons we have been seeing on Mahjong boxes this week.

Liu Bolin is represented by Klein Sun Gallery, and we thank them for allowing us to share these photographs with you.

http://www.kleinsungallery.com/artist/Liu_Bolin/works/ 

As always, if you have any comments  please email

kuanyinart@gmail.com

 

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I think many of us will have to agree this is one of the most delightful dragon Mahjong boxes we have ever seen. * Instead of having just a deeply carved dragon on the lid, or a beautiful handle, the beautiful handle has become a three dimensional dragon, a piece of sculpture posed on top of the box. Look at the attention paid to him, the mouth with its teeth (tho not too big to be intimidating!), his nose and whiskers, his backward facing horns, his "chops" along the side of his face, five toed detailed claws, and curled tail encircling the back of his body. How fabulous is he? Surrounding him, on the border of the box, are flower petals and bats.

Interestingly on this Mahjong box, it really is all about dragons, unlike some of the other carved boxes we have seen where they simply put in an appearance and go away.

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Here's the inside of the box where we see two dragons. If the dragon on the lid looks somewhat friendly, these guys are almost smiling! They are surrounding a circle (the sun?), and the shou symbol, right below it,  representing longevity. In Patricia Bjaaland Welch's book Chinese Art A Guide to Visual Motifs and Visual Imagery, the round version of the shou that we see above may mean a wish that a person live his full life span and die a natural death. We also see the four bats above and below the disk, and an endless knot, a Buddhist symbol, just behind each dragon's tail. Each knot represents a long life, uninterrupted by set-backs. (Wolfram Eberhard A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols)

 

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On the above photograph of the box and its Mahjong tiles, if you look carefully you can see there are dragons along the side of the box. The box is the home of a much-sought after Chinese Bakelite set. The tiles have green wafer backs which you can see in the photo.  What is so exciting about this particular set, especially in terms of this post, is the One Bam and the One Dot.

 

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This is no ordinary Mahjong One Dot. Instead of being a version of  flower or circles, we have a dragon! You can clearly see the dragon's head, his nostrils and backward facing horns. Other parts of his body are seen in the top of the tile, where they resemble mountains, and right below where it resembles a wave, and  the rest of his body is hidden either by clouds or water.

And here is the One Bam:

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A phoenix! How divine is that! We have a real, fully dragon box housing a Mahjong set with both dragon and phoenix tiles! And the pairing of these two creatures is what we will be covering soon.

We thank Bill Price for sending these photos of his fabulous set to us, allowing us all to enjoy it.

* As many of you know, oftentimes boxes were not made for mahjong sets; rather boxes were appropriated from those often used for jewelry (some of the five drawer versions, or ones with two large opening doors) or in this case a small fully carved box.

The book I wrote with Ann Israel is being published by Tuttle. To see more about it:

www.mahjonggtheartof thegame.com

To order it click here:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mah-jongg-ann-israel/1118759459?ean=9784805313237

or here from Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Mah-Jongg-Collectors-Guide-Tiles/dp/4805313234/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1414844427&sr=8-7&keywords=mah+jongg

 

 

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-6   Here we have a deeply carved dragon on the side of a mahjong box. Isn't he just fabulous?! He definitely has more of the camel's head and lack of mane we expect, and his body is covered with fish-like scales. His claws are somewhat rounded, in keeping with the rounded shapes of the clouds, which here are ruyi-shaped (the mushroom shape often seen in Chinese art.) Note the cross-hatching around the center panel, forming a frame.

channel islands auctions

This set above, auctioned off at Channel Islands Auctions, features a wonderful deep carved front panel. The flaming disk may well be the object he's fixated on, and he's in the sky, seen in the clouds. On both of the boxes we have just looked at, the dragon scene does not relate in any way to the scenes on the other sides of the box. It just must have made the set more appealing to the buyer. Dragons can also appear on box handles. Here is one such example:

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Here's a handsome fellow who definitely was the reason the new owner bought this box!  And now follows a view from the side:

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You can notice his camel-like head, long whiskers, and short backward facing horns. The carved scene he is covering is one of combat, but it does not seem to relate to the dragon whatsoever, unless we take the dragon as the symbol of the ruler and this is a story of a young ruler learning the arts of combat? And now for what has been promised for the last few days: information about those wonderful dragon and pearl photographs we saw. The artist is Liu Bolin, who is represented by Eli Klein Sun Gallery in New York City. Liu Bolin has been dubbed the Invisible Man, because very often  viewers do not know that they are seeing him when they are looking  at one of his photographs. In many ways, it is similar to many of us who don't know what we are seeing when we look at the art on Mahjong tiles and sets, but we are learning!

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Above is the artist posed in front of yet another dragon from the 9 Dragon Wall in Beihai Park in Beijing, with the wall seen in its entirety in the photograph below. There is another 9 Dragon Wall in the Forbidden City.

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We thank the people at Klein Sun Gallery, and invite you to explore more of the art and artists represented there.

To learn more about Liu Bolin, here are a few links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Bolin

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/11/liu-bolin-the-invisible-man/100623/

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/04/06/134666588/chinese-artist-attempts-to-blend-in-literally  

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Dragons also appear on painted and lacquered boxes. You  may remember seeing this dragon Mahjong box before, but it is hard to  get tired of dragons! Here you can clearly see the dragon, frolicking in the clouds and partly obscured by them. His body is covered in scales, whiskers and horns are seen on his head, his five toes are splayed, and the flaming symbol of wisdom is within his sights. ( On this box, as in other Chinese art, fire is shown by squiggly lines like those just in front of the dragon and surrounding the "pearl", and clouds are those large round shapes, although they can often be much smaller.) If the dragon represents the ruler of China, as was believed, it certainly would be good if he were able to get  a hold of that wisdom right within his grasp!

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On another post we had a different interpretation of the dragon and pearl, but in Chinese art several different interpretations often are correct.

 

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This dragon and disk is from another Mahjong box. The dragon is leonine, down to the mane surrounding his head. You'll notice the scales of the dragon are different than the ones on the other box, much bigger and less reptilian. The silver inlay is not actually silver, nor is it paint. Rather it is paktong, a substance also known as cupronickel. Paktong is an anglicization of the Chinese word. It can be found on box handles and other box trim, so if you have silver looking handles or trim on your box, it may well be paktong. The above box is in the process of being restored, having lost some lacquer, etc. A photo will be taken when it comes back.

From wikipedia:

"Cupronickel or copper-nickel is an alloy of copper that contains nickel and strengthening elements, such as iron and manganese." 

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"A more familiar common use is in silver-coloured modern circulation coins. A typical mix is 75% copper, 25% nickel, and a trace amount of manganese. In the past, true silver coins were debased with cupronickel. Despite high copper content, cupronickel is silver in color."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupronickel

And now for our dragon photo of the day:

Liu Bolin Eli Klein

 

Here you see the dragon and "pearl." He is in the water's waves, his body with large scales has flames surrounding his  limbs, and his claws certainly resemble those of a hawk!

Information about this and the other dragon images seen the last few days will appear on April 3rd.

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We thought this part was over, but one of our readers sent us two photographs of fabulous bats from the outside of boxes. We have to include them, of course, and you will see why. So we scoured the internet (mostly ebay) for more photos of bats, different yet from what we have seen to date, and they will be seen first.

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The top panel has four bats in the corners. It is believed the two holding the medallion are too.

 

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Another central medallion, this time held down by four bats.

 

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On one writeup the vendor mentioned a stylized lucky bat handle. This box has one of them, and it looks like a bat in midflight, wings down.

 

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This one has that kind of handle too. And you will see the brass has bats along the outside of the center medallion, maybe two or possibly four, etched into the brass. There has also been discussion as to whether the brass corners are bats too. If we go with the lack of antennae theory, they too would be bats. Ray Heaton added the following:

"This image on your blog shows the "double happiness" symbol on the box which is closely associated to wedding celebrations."

 

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Notice the tiny little bats with their eyes etched into the brass, holding down the medallions.

 

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This is a Chinese bat hat box. Don't you love the bats encircling the top cone?

And now for the reasons this extra bat post was added:

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This fabulous bat is on a panel of a beautiful red lacquer box.

 

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And this is the front panel, with two bats. Isn't the detail on the bodies and wings of the bats delightful? They are flying around a Shou symbol.

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This little chart is taken from forumgeomancy.net

It shows a round form of shou, very similar to those on the box.

As always, if you have any photos of sets you'd like to include for this site, please send an email to

kuanyinart@gmail.com

And please sign up if you'd like to get email notifications about new posts.

 

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In addition to their presence on tiles, bats can be found on Mahjong boxes. Sometimes bats are very easy to recognize, but often it is a bit harder because they are very stylized.

They can add ornamentation to the outside of the boxes.

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This bat is fairly easy to recognize. It's on the front of a red lacquer box.

From the same red box, here is another one

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Yes, it does look like a butterfly, but it seems that butterflies and bats often resemble each other in Chinese art. The lack of antennae make it more likely that it is a bat.

And bats like these are found around the top of the box:

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wrapping around the edge from the top to the sides.

 

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This bat is the drawer pull for a front panel; pulling the panel upward ( by holding the bat's body)  reveals the drawers inside the box.

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This ornate brass bat is on the side of a very special box.

Boxes like this are used for holding counters and dice. Here are some photos pulled from ebay:

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You can see the four bats around the edge of the box

 

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and along the sides. The bats on this box are completely endearing.

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If a player was using this beautiful mother-of-pearl as a counter, she was very lucky indeed! Look up to the top and bottom middle of the counter. You will see a bat with outspread wings and striped body.

As always, if you have some photos you would like to add, please email me at

kuanyinart@gmail.com

Here is a story that is a must read; it is not about boxes, but it is about bats and a Chinese vase. It just had to be included somewhere on the site, so it is here.

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This wood box holds a deep bone set that will be discussed tomorrow. The front panel has the signs for Fa (prosperity) and Chung (center, often symbolizing China). Pushing in the top button releases the panel which drops down to reveal the drawers. The two scenes on the box are different from the ones normally carved, and appear to be interactions with family members or servants, scenes of everyday life.

Ray Heaton noted the box is similar to a box Michael Stanwick describes on his site:

http://themahjongtileset.co.uk/pre-1920-names-game/

"Another more prominent term, 中 發  zhong fa, is found on a box of precursor ma que tiles collected by Sir Henry Wilkinson in 1889 (see Mah Jong(g) Before Mah Jong(g) Part 2). This box and its contents were finally donated to the British Museum as part of the Schreiber Collection. It seems that in the context of the other characters on the box, which describe the physical characteristics of the tiles (materials, construction, thickness and quality of engraving), the zhong and fa characters are different in that they are selectively mentioned as features of the composition of the tile designs or patterns. This selectivity may suggest these two characters are special features of the tile set pattern."

Ray adds: "Michael uses the Pinyin for 中, "Zhong", whereas you have used the Wade Giles system of pronunciation with "Chung".  Fa is the same in both."

 

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One side of the box features an older man touching a young woman with what looks like a wand or a flute. The woman holds a fan in one hand, and points to her face with the other. The tree is most probably a pine. A vase holding a plant can be seen in the background, through an open window. Note the beautiful brass corners with the butterfly pattern.  The carving patterns around are window are diaper patterns, often seen on box trim.

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This appears to depict two young ladies, one of whom (the one of the right) is pouring out water, perhaps to help the other wash her hair. Once again we see a pine tree and a window, but this time the window is the curvilinear kind we often see on Flower tiles. Each lady is wearing a kimono, and the long sleeves are clearly seen on the one on the left.