An impressed gray pottery 'heavenly horse, phoenix, and tiger' tomb tile, Western Han dynasty

Yamanaka & Company.

Collection of Kate Sturges Buckingham (1858-1937).

Gifted to the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, in memory of her sister Lucy Maud Buckingham (1870-1920) in February 1925 (accession no. 1925.107.049). 

Bricks of this type, characterized by relatively plain fields framed by a diaper border and animated by a small number of lively impressed motifs, are often referred to as the ‘Luoyang style’ in modern scholarship. Compared with the more densely patterned stamped bricks attributed to regions such as Zhengzhou or Shaanxi, Luoyang examples tend to emphasize clarity of composition and dynamic figural imagery, often featuring auspicious creatures such as horses, tigers, and phoenixes that evoke the intersection between the natural and supernatural realms within Han funerary belief.

Tiles of this type were produced using a mold-impression technique, in which carved wooden stamps bearing the desired imagery were pressed onto the surface of soft clay prior to firing. As described by Chen Shen and Chanfei Xu in Impressions on Clay: pictorial hollow-brick tomb tiles from western Han Luoyang (2nd century BC), Beijing, 2024, p.337, craftsmen first prepared a wooden mold with the pictorial design and then impressed it onto the damp clay body much like applying a seal impression. This process allowed for both repetition and subtle variation, preserving the immediacy of the carved design while enabling efficient production for large architectural surfaces within tomb chambers.

The iconography reflects themes common in Han funerary art, where creatures of the earthly and celestial worlds appear together as auspicious emblems and symbolic guardians. Horses were often associated with power, mobility, and the expanding horizons of the Han empire, while the phoenix signified harmony and cosmic order. The tiger, increasingly prominent in Han visual culture, functioned as a protective creature capable of warding off malevolent forces. Combined on a single tile, these motifs articulate the Han conception of the tomb as a liminal space linking the human world with the cosmic domain. Compare with a closely related example preserved in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, illustrated ibid., pp 220-221.

The present tile forms part of the celebrated group of Han dynasty tomb bricks formerly preserved in the Art Institute of Chicago, assembled in the early twentieth century through the patronage of the Buckingham family. Acquired before 1925 from the renowned dealers Yamanaka & Co., the bricks were collected by Kate Sturges Buckingham (1858–1937), whose eclectic taste and philanthropy greatly enriched the museum’s holdings. Preserved for nearly a century in this major institutional collection, the group represents one of the most significant surviving assemblies of Han impressed tomb bricks outside China.