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Leather Art Museum

Chinese box

A Chinese box decorated with haiku poems, 18th-19th centuries, wood covered in red-lacquered leather, 8.5 × 12 × 17 cm, China. Leather Art Museum. Vic.

 

A Chinese box decorated with haiku poems, 18th-19th centuries, wood covered in red-lacquered leather, 8.5 × 12 × 17 cm, China. Leather Art Museum. Vic.

 

This small box was a present offered to a friend when they were going away, or to a newlywed couple. The inscriptions in Chinese letters are poems written by renowned Chinese poets of the Tang dynasty (618-907). These texts found on each of the sides are known as haikus, traditional Chinese poems dealing with different themes such as morality, romanticism, friendship, etc.

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