Figure of Daoist Immortal He Xiangu (base)
Unknown Artist
1700s
Medium
Colored ivory
Dimensions
l. 13.5 cm
Classification
Wood
Department
Chinese Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund
Accession Number
1976.60.b
About this artwork
He Xiangu is one of the Eight Immortals in the Daoist pantheon. She was thought have been a real person who lived in the Tang dynasty, originally named He Qiong. As a teenager, she was instructed in a dream to eat powdered mica to become immune from death and to vow to remain unmarried. She did so and became an enlightened practitioner of Daoism. In this delicate carving, He Xiangu is placidly seated in a gnarled and knotty wooden raft amid green-tinted ivory waves. In front of her rests a bambo...