Brick Tile of 2 Wéiqí Board Game Players, China (3346BKE) $495 SPECIAL PRICE $395

Description

The Song dynasty (960–1279CE) is considered the most culturally brilliant era in later imperial Chinese history. A massive expansion produced government and public buildings and tombs with walls decorated with earthenware unglazed mold made brick tiles. Some were purely decorative and others were wishes for happiness and comfort in live and deceased people’s afterlife called mingqi. With a deep scalloped frame centered by an elegant pointed Indian ogee arch, this tile shows two people engrossed in the Chinese board game wéiqí. The artisan created illusion of perspective by placing the table at an acute angle with the players in a deep receding space in front of low reliefs on the wall behind them. The player on the right turns his head and looks at us as if to say, “look at my brilliant move.”  Wéiqí originated in China more than 2500 years ago (Japanese name is Go), is the world’s oldest board game and was one of the Four Scholarly Pursuits in ancient Chinese times. The object is to control a larger portion of the board than one’s opponent by moving stone pieces (now plastic) on a grid to surround and capture opponent’s pieces while strategically balancing defensive and offensive moves. Although having simple rules, it is more complex than chess as the board is larger, there are many more decisions to consider for each move and the game takes longer to complete. As many Song tiles, it is in good to fair condition as most buildings containing them were built using ancient un-reinforced mud/brick construction subject to disasters like earthquakes, floods and wars. Little of its original light slip and polychrome remain. The right person’s face was re-glued, and a corner is chipped. Nonetheless, it retains in quaint charm over the centuries.