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Vase with lion-head handles

China

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 211

Chinese archaistic bronze vases like this example were passed down by prominent Japanese aristocrats as heirlooms. The elegant vase has lion-head handles and is adorned with an archaic pattern of birds around its neck. The inscription on its original storage-box lid, written in 1676 by Hotta Masamoto, reveals that it was a gift from Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu to Hotta’s grandfather, the daimyō Masamori, during the shogun’s visit in 1634.

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