Brush Pot with Scene of Washing an Elephant

China

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 204

Found in paintings as well as the decorative arts, the theme of figures washing an elephant, or sao xiang, is a pun on the Buddhist notion of the illusionary nature of the phenomenal world.

Brush Pot with Scene of  Washing an Elephant, Porcelain painted with cobalt blue under transparent glaze (Jingdezhen ware), China

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