Guardian Lion - Springfield, MA - Lion Statues on Waymarking.com

This lion is at the entrance to the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum in Springfield. It is depicted with its front paws resting on a ball...with a thread winding itself from the ball to the lion's mouth. This means that this was a male lion. (See the Wikipedia artcile below.) The accompanying placard indicates it is bronze, from China and is dated 1622-1722.
Wikipedia (visit link) adds:

"Chinese guardian lions or Imperial guardian lion, traditionally known in Chinese simply as Shi ... and often called "Foo Dogs" in the West, are a common representation of the lion in pre-modern China. Statues of guardian lions have traditionally stood in front of Chinese Imperial palaces, Imperial tombs, government offices, temples, and the homes of government officials and the wealthy, from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), and were believed to have powerful mythic protective benefits. They are also used in other artistic contexts, for example on door-knockers, and in pottery. Pairs of guardian lion statues are still common decorative and symbolic elements at the entrances to restaurants, hotels, supermarkets and other structures, with one sitting on each side of the entrance, in China and in other places around the world where the Chinese people have immigrated and settled, especially in local Chinatowns.

The lions are usually depicted in pairs. When used as statuory, the pair would consist of a male resting his paw upon an embroidered ball (in imperial contexts, representing supremacy over the world) and a female restraining a playful cub that is on its back (representing nurture)."

Physical Address: 21 Edwards Street Springfield, MA USA 01103 Web Site: [Web Link]

Visit Instructions:
Take a photo of the lion.

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Date Logged Log User Rating   06/26/2010 Metro2 visited it