Hiding in plain sight – in the storage of Cincinnati Art Museum’s East Asian art collection, a seemingly unremarkable bronze mirror from the 15th and 16th century China. Part of a vast collection of hundreds of thousands of other artifacts with it, it turns out that this is an extremely rare magic mirror, with the image of the Buddha shrouded in mystical beams, reports CNN.
Magic Mirrors and Lighting: Japan and China
The Buddha is seated in his quintessential meditative pose, whilst rays of light emanate from him. There are also six characters on the reverse surface ‘南無阿彌陀佛’, that are a reference to Amitabha Buddha, an important figure of East Asian Buddhism.
Last displayed in 2017, the magic mirror had previously been sitting in storage for decades on a backroom shelf. A magic mirror is an ancient Chinese art form dated to the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD). They are transparent or light penetrating mirrors, and according to the museum, “... when light is projected on them, the mirrors appear transparent and reveal characters or a decorative design.”
The museum's curator of East Asian art, Dr. Hou-mei Sung, is responsible for bringing this beautiful historical artifact to light. She saw an uncanny resemblance to mirrors from Japan’s Edo-period, though it was smaller than ones held in museums in Tokyo, Shanghai, and New York City, and had a more complex Chinese script style, reports Artnet News .
