Box in the Form of Two Peaches

Just as an apple symbolizes forbidden fruit in Western cultures, the peach is magic in China. The peach can mean many things, including spring, female beauty, marriage or the ability to bear children. Longevity is often associated with peaches, because of an old tale in which the fruit in the garden of Queen Mother of the West ripens every thousand years. Whoever eats the Queen Mother’s peach will live a long life. Here, on top of the peaches, are two serpentine creatures resembling archaic forms of dragons from the mythic realm of the Queen Mother.