2023 was The Year of the Rabbit – creating an Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.
This exhibition presents sixteen remarkable Chinese works illustrating how rabbits have been a prominent artistic subject since ancient times. Their earliest depictions are featured on jade pendants and sacred ritual bronze vessels dating from China’s Shang (ca. 1600–1048 BCE) and Western Zhou (ca. 1046–771 BCE) dynasties. A popular figure
In Chinese literature and folklore, a rabbit is believed to inhabit the moon and assists a goddess (Chang’e) by preparing an elixir for immortality. The exhibition shows this story on the back of an eighth-to-ninth-century bronze mirror–as well as on a nineteenth-century embroidered silk mirror case. Also on view are images of the zodiac animals in jade and ceramics that were meant to adorn people’s homes as well as dispel harmful influences.
THIS RABBIT EXHIBITION IS Up through February 4, 2024, at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 207. – Free with Museum admission.
The Sign for 2024 is the Dragon.
