Guided tour · For everyone · Around the world · from ancient Egypt to 1914

The moon

A god, a hare, a bodhisattva, a crescent, a castle, a jar, geese, photographs, the sea and a city by night: the moon in ten works from around the world.

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Works

10

Time

about 15 min

Collections

8

About this tour

Everyone on Earth sees the same moon, but not everyone sees the same thing in it. Here are ten works from eight museums, from ancient Egypt to the twentieth century, in the order they were made. At every work, look first, then discover.

We begin in Egypt, with a lamp made of Nile clay.

The 10 works

1. 

   Work 1 of 10

   Lamp in the shape of the Egyptian god Thoth as a baboon with the moon disk on his head

   Egypt, Hellenistic to Roman Period · 332 BC – AD 395 · Museo Egizio, Turin

   This little clay lamp is a god in the shape of a baboon. What does he wear on his head?

   The moon: a round disc. Thoth, the god of writing and wisdom, was also a god of the moon.

   The Egyptians showed Thoth as a baboon or as an ibis, and linked him with the moon, which measures time. This lamp was made after Alexander the Great took Egypt, when Greek and then Roman rulers governed the country.

2. 

   Work 2 of 10

   Foliated bronze mirror decorated with Moon Palace

   China, Tang dynasty · Tang dynasty, 618–907 · National Palace Museum, Taipei

   The back of this bronze mirror shows the palace of the moon. Who lives there?

   A hare, standing on its hind legs with a pestle: the jade hare, who pounds the elixir of life. On the other side floats Chang'e, the goddess of the moon.

   Where Europeans saw a face in the moon, people in China saw a hare under a great tree. The polished front of the mirror showed its owner's face; the back carried the moon. It is now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

3. 

   Work 3 of 10

   Water-moon Avalokiteshvara

   Korea, Goryeo dynasty · first half of the 14th century · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

   The bodhisattva of compassion sits at ease by the water. Where is the moon?

   Up near the top, on the left: a tiny moon, and in it a hare pounding the elixir of immortality.

   Painters in Goryeo Korea gave this subject gold and fine colours on silk, and very few of their paintings survive.

4. 

   Work 4 of 10

   The Virgin and Child on a Crescent with a Starry Crown

   Albrecht Dürer · 1508 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

   Mary stands on something. What is it?

   A crescent moon. In the Book of Revelation, a woman appears with the moon under her feet and a crown of stars, and artists gave both to Mary.

   Dürer engraved this in copper in 1508. Look at the bottom of the print: the year, and his monogram, AD.

5. 

   Work 5 of 10

   Moonlit Landscape with a View of the New Amstel River and Castle Kostverloren

   Aert van der Neer · 1647 · J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

   The moon lights up the river. Which building stands out against the sky?

   Castle Kostverloren, on the New Amstel River near Amsterdam. Van der Neer usually painted imaginary places, so a real landmark is rare in his work.

   Most Dutch landscape painters of the 1600s chose blue skies full of clouds. Van der Neer mastered the night. He painted this scene in the studio, so the river is not quite as it was: Dutch artists then usually composed idealised scenes indoors.

6. 

   Work 6 of 10

   Moon jar

   Korea, Joseon dynasty · late 18th century · Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis

   There is no moon painted on this jar. So why is it called a moon jar?

   Moon jars are named for their milky white and their round shape, like a full moon. Around the middle you can see a seam: it was made from two bowls joined together.

   Moon jars were thrown in two halves on the potter's wheel and joined, so their shapes vary: some are round, others, like this one, more oval. They were used to store dry goods in daily life, and as vessels for ceremonies.

7. 

   Work 7 of 10

   Full Moon over Takanawa, from the series Famous Places in the Eastern Capital

   Utagawa Hiroshige · about 1831 · Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland

   What flies across the full moon?

   Wild geese, in a long line, over the bay of Takanawa in Edo, today's Tokyo.

   Hiroshige designed this colour woodblock print for a series of famous places in Edo. Geese and a full moon were a favourite pairing in Japanese poetry and painting, a sign of autumn.

8. 

   Work 8 of 10

   The Moon (left) Aug. 12, 1862; (right) Oct. 3, 1860

   Warren De la Rue; Beck & Beck Smith · negatives 1860 and 1862, print about 1862 · J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

   Two photographs of the moon, side by side. Are they the same?

   Almost, but not quite. They were taken nearly two years apart, and the moon shows itself very slightly turned. Seen through a stereoscope, the pair merges into one moon that looks round, like a ball.

   Warren De la Rue, a British astronomer, was one of the first to photograph the moon through a telescope. This card was made to be looked at through a stereoscope.

9. 

   Work 9 of 10

   Moonlight, Wood Island Light

   Winslow Homer · 1894 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

   The moon itself is hidden. Where do you see its light?

   On the water: a path of light across the waves, and white foam breaking on the dark rocks.

   Winslow Homer lived at Prouts Neck, on the coast of Maine, and painted the sea in every weather, by day and by night.

10. 

    Work 10 of 10

    Moonlight: Walls of Tangiers

    Henry Ossawa Tanner · about 1913–14 · Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles

    Moonlight turns the old walls blue and green. Who walks at their foot?

    A few cloaked figures, small and dark, in the shadow of the walls.

    Henry Ossawa Tanner, an African American painter, made his home in France and travelled to Morocco. After that trip, he painted many scenes of Tangier, this one at night, in cool moonlit blues.

The end of the tour

Ten moons.

A god, a hare, a bodhisattva, a crescent, a castle, a jar, geese, photographs, the sea and a city by night: one moon, seen in many ways, across more than fifteen hundred years.

Questions at the end

Start this tour in Auriaan

Works from these collections

• Museo Egizio
• National Palace Museum
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• National Gallery of Art
• J. Paul Getty Museum
• Minneapolis Institute of Art
• Cleveland Museum of Art
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art

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