Our Guardian Lion is in "Ming Style" like those in the Forbidden City.
It is made of hand-carved polychrome wood with gold-coloured finishes.
Small signs of the times.
Measures 20x25x9.5 cm. It weighs 888g.
A beautiful collector's piece!
The "Chinese Guardian Lions" or "Imperial Guardian Lions" are a typical architectural ornament of Chinese tradition.
Typically made of stone, they are also known as "Stone Lions" or "Shishi".
In English they are also called "Lion Dogs" or "Foo Dogs"/"Fu Dogs".
This is a decorative style born in the Chinese Buddhist environment with an apotropaic intent: lions (greatly stylised in shape), often one male with a globe in its claws and the other female with a cub.
Guardian lion statues are traditionally placed in front of the palaces of Chinese emperors and their tombs, temples and palaces of high officials/nobles as a powerful apotropaic symbol, they were meant to protect the building they were placed to defend from both harmful spiritual influences and ill-intentioned people.
Used in Chinese imperial palaces and tombs, lions later spread to other parts of Asia
