![]() “It’s not reflecting the decoration on the back of the mirror, but an image hidden inside the mirror, like a miracle. They were more technologically complex, showing no trace of their projected designs. The curator believes the Buddhist versions developed during the Ming Dynasty and were likely used for worship of Amitābha, with adherents chanting the invocation to gain rebirth into the Western Paradise after death. ![]() These early designs were traditional, consisting of repetitive circular patterns and auspicious sayings, and they were used for ritual purposes. The origins of magic mirrors can be traced to the second century BCE, during the Han Dynasty, Sung says, when people held small mirrors in front of sunlight to cast decorations on their backs onto a wall. The Cincinnati Art Museum’s mirror, however, uses traditional characters, suggesting that it was made in China. Both date to the Edo period and feature the same six-character chant to Amitābha in simplified Chinese characters, which were commonly used in Japan. ![]() One is in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum and another in that of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In part because of their cryptic nature, however, few others have been identified. With no complete record to reference, Sung has been piecing together its history and significance by looking at other examples of magic mirrors. The mirror was accessioned in 1961 but entered the collection earlier. “To our surprise, we found that it does indeed project a hidden image of the Buddha.” “Just by chance I asked our object conservator to do a test, to shine a light on the back to see if it has this magic nature,” Sung says. During her research she learned about Buddhist magic mirrors, which typically featured the same inscription: “Hail to Amitābha Buddha”-the Buddha of Infinite Light-on the back. screen, the image on the back of the mirror appears there, generally as a. Part of a vast collection of hundreds of thousands of other artifacts with it, it turns out that this is an extremely rare magic mirror, with the image of the Buddha. Sung, who had last displayed the work in 2017 in an exhibition on Japanese arms and armour, revisited the mirror because she was on the hunt for more Buddhist objects to include in a rehang of the galleries. Magic mirrors, or, as the early Chinese connoisseurs described them, mirrors. Hiding in plain sight in the storage of Cincinnati Art Museum’s East Asian art collection, a seemingly unremarkable bronze mirror from the 15th and 16th century China. Front and back of the Buddhist bronze mirror, China or Japan (15–16th century).
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