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Chinese soapstone seals with a lion and cub

Image attached to O.108 A & B-1946

An image of A pair of seals. Red and grey with handles carved as a lion and cub, emblematic of Emperor and Empress. These were used on documents dealing with the appointment of actors on matters relating to the Imperial palace guards, and various minor commands. The characters read:’ Nourish your mind and cultivate your nature’. Soapstone, height 21.4 cm, circa 1800-1900. Chinese.

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About this image

A pair of seals. Red and grey with handles carved as a lion and cub, emblematic of Emperor and Empress. These were used on documents dealing with the appointment of actors on matters relating to the Imperial palace guards, and various minor commands. The characters read:’ Nourish your mind and cultivate your nature’. Soapstone, height 21.4 cm, circa 1800-1900. Chinese.

Image data

  • Accession Number: O.108 A & B-1946
  • Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
  • Aperture: f/25.0
  • Focal length: 85
  • Camera: Canon EOS 5D
  • Photographer name: Michael Jones
  • Image height: 838 pixels
  • Image width: 1024 pixels
  • Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.4 (Windows)
  • Filesize: 653.22kB
  • Exposure time: 1/100
  • ISO Speed: 100
  • Fnumber: 25/1
  • Captured: 2008:03:11 11:21:04

Key words

19th Century animals carved Chinese Fitz_AA lion cub lions seal soapstone

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The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025) "Chinese soapstone seals with a lion and cub" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-729234904 Accessed: 2025-12-19 07:50:36

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{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-729234904 |title=Chinese soapstone seals with a lion and cub |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-12-19 07:50:36|publisher=The University of Cambridge}}

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<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/aa/aa37/O_108A_26B_1946_200803_mfj22_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Seal"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Chinese soapstone seals with a lion and cub</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>
    

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