Chinese Temple Scroll, Framed

White beard, level gaze, and a court waiting on him.

This Taoist temple scroll, framed, comes from China and dates to the late 18th or early 19th century. It is painted paper on cloth, titled The Three Pures: To Ta, by an unknown artist. The Three Pures are the highest gods of Taoism, and priests hung their images in temples and at rites so that worshippers and officiants could make offerings before them. A white-bearded figure stands under a halo, in red and blue robes. Two attendants flank a small altar below. Seventy-three inches high and thirty-eight wide.

Priests once stood before this kind of painting. It still expects attention.