412.
A GILT AND SILVER-INLAID BRONZE MODEL OF A HARE
Qing dynasty, 17th-18th century
15,5 x 21 x 15 cm
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 4839.
Hare or rabbit – the fourth signs of the Chinese zodiac – is often associated in Daoism with longevity and rebirth. According to a well known legend, a hare lives on the moon together with Chang’e, the Goddess of the Moon. They prepare the elixir of immortality from the bark of the cassia tree using a mortar and a jade pestle, a symbolic act which was already immortalized in the Tang dynasty by the famous poet Li Bai (701-762) with the following verses: “The rabbit on the moon in vain pounds the elixir”.
During the Qing dynasty the emperors celebrated Chang’e and her rabbit in the Moon festival, or Mid-Autumn festival, asking her to interced for better harvests.
Gilt bronze models of hare appears in the repertory of Chinese art already during the Tang dynasty, conceived in a more static and less naturalistic pose (see the example in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, inv. F88-37/82).
