BOSTON, MA.- The Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum presents the exhibit A Bronze Menagerie: Mat Weights of Early China through January 17, 2007. A remarkable and mysterious group of small bronze sculptures from China’s Warring States Period and Han Dynasty (475 BC–AD 220) depicts bears, felines, rams, deer, and other creatures both real and imaginary. Made in sets of four and often filled with lead, these sculptures were used to weigh down mats used for seating and for playing board games, and their internment in tombs suggests that they were as significant during life as after death. The Gardner Museum’s pair of bear mat weights were the first Chinese antiquities Isabella Stewart Gardner purchased for her collection and they have delighted visitors for decades. A Bronze Menagerie is the first exhibition devoted to mat weights and will consider their function, style, and broader cosmological significance—shedding new light on a fascinating art form.

The photograph below shows Liubo which was a two-person board game popular during the Han dynasty, which was similar to backgammon or checkers, although its precise rules have been lost. Moves were determined by throwing sticks onto a mat, as one would throw dice. Chance and luck seem to have been more important than skill.

Weights, sometimes made in the form of players and spectators, were used to hold down the corners of the mats. In these examples, the figures gesture excitedly at the throwing of the game sticks. The weights have been painted, which is an unusual technique for decorating bronzes.