Chinese Scroll Depicting Scenes From Hell: Unframed

A gate with a face, and a crowd that would rather be elsewhere.

This scroll depicting scenes from hell is from China, 19th century, painted in pigment on paper and left unframed. Such scrolls illustrated the belief that every soul faces trial in the courts of the underworld, and they served temples and families as both teaching and prayer for the departed. Two seated judges face each other behind red and green desks, while a warrior with flags strides between them. Below, a round stone prison with glaring eyes holds a crush of figures. A dark shaggy beast looms at the lower right. It hangs 84.5 inches high and just over 33 wide.

Moral instruction has seldom been so well staged.