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Washington, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Saturday, November 10, 2007

jade rabbit

It's 1 7/8 x 1 1/4 x 3/16 in. Only a button.

Highly stylized down to pretty much body and huge ears, it delivers maximum rabbit imagery in a tiny area. Somehow it made its way from 10th century BC China (Westen Zhou Dynasty) to Chicago.

Wonder if it was meant to call forth association with the "Jade Rabbit" of the Chinese Moon Festival:
In this legend, three fairy sages transformed themselves into pitiful old
men and begged for something to eat from a fox, a monkey and a rabbit. The fox
and the monkey both had food to give to the old men, but the rabbit,
empty-handed, offered his own flesh instead, jumping into a blazing fire to cook
himself. The sages were so touched by the rabbit's sacrifice that they let him
live in the Moon Palace where he became the "Jade Rabbit."

1 comment:

Ellie said...

Hey! We're playing blog tag! Thank you for getting me back and saying hello and yes, of course you can gimme da linky love. =) Your blog is way cool, too!