Date: Early 20th century
Dimensions: Length 200 cm, Width 136 cm
The Shanghai Museum
The Zhao Mausoleum is the joint mausoleum of Li Shimin (599-649), the Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty, and Empress Zhangsun, posthumously known as the Civil and Virtuous Empress. Its construction took more than a century and eventually included over 180 tombs that surround the tomb of the emperor and empress, making the mausoleum one of the largest imperial burial complexes in ancient China.
The Six Steeds of the Zhao Mausoleum refer to the reliefs of six warhorses that accompanied Li Shimin through life-and-death campaigns. Carved in relief on panels flanking the northern Sima Gate of the mausoleum, they are respectively named Saluzi, Quanmaogua, Baitiwu, Teqinbiao, Qingzhui, and Shifachi. The Emperor Taizong regarded them as comrades-in-arms and as immortal emblems of the indelible contributions to the founding of the Tang empire. Legend has it that he ordered the painter Yan Liben to produce the designs and Liben's elder brother Lide to oversee the creation of the reliefs, which were carved in bluestone using the jiandi gaorou ("high relief with a reduced ground") technique. Each relief stands about 1.7 meters tall, 2 meters wide, and weighs several tons. With three-petal manes and knotted tails, the charging or standing steeds vividly embody the majesty of Tang warhorses, celebrating both the Emperor Taizong's illustrious military exploits and the accomplishments of Tang stone sculpture.
In the early 20th century, the reliefs of Saluzi and Quanmaogua were removed by local warlords. They later passed through the hands of the antique dealer C. T. Loo and eventually went overseas. Today they are housed in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The other four reliefs had also been broken and were nearly sold illegally through theft, but the Xi'an Beilin Museum has managed to reassemble and restore them and now displays them with replicas of the other two in a newly renovated gallery.
The rubbings of the Six Steeds presented in this exhibition come from the collection of the Shanghai Museum. The complete set comprises six sheets bearing the "Mark of Rubbings of Antiques by the Li Family in Chang'an". Since the original stones were carved in high relief, making direct rubbing impossible, Li Yuexi (1881-1946), a renowned rubbing master from Chang'an, devised a new method: he created flat templates based on the original carvings, then adopted the chuita ("mallet-rubbing") technique used for bronzes to produce the rubbings. Then he reconstructed rubbings for the two lost steeds, thereby making the whole set complete. His son Li Songru carried on this craft, enabling the survival of this rare set. Although not obtained directly from the original stones, these rubbings closely match the originals in form, proportion, and spirit, serving as significant testimony to modern rubbing craftsmanship and the safeguarding of cultural heritage.
