Funerary Couch (one of four sides)
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These stone slabs once formed the three sides of a funerary couch. A stone couch, known as spirit couch, served for the owner’s afterlife in the tomb. It recalls domestic furniture used by the living for sitting or reclining. Three of the four displaced slabs are engraved with scenes from the stories of filial piety and of virtuous women. This set was made several decades later than the sarcophagus on the opposite wall. Similar to the sarcophagus, the message of the stories is fundamentally didactic, demonstrating the moral values of the owner. The narratives show similar episodes in landscape settings, but the vertical compositions are more condensed than the earlier engravings.
“Ch’ang-ling, The Tomb of the Emperor Yung-lo of The Ming Dynasty,” Bulletin of the Society for Researching Chinese Architecture (1933), vol. IV, no. 2, pl. 10 (repro.).
Annette L. Juliano, Art of the Dynasties Centuries of Change and Innovation (New York, New York: China Institute In America, 1957), 15, fig. d, 74-78, fig. 48Ia-48Ic (repro.).
Toshio Nagahiro, “六朝時代美術の硏究” (The Representational Art of the Six Dynasties Period), Report of the Institute for Humanistic Studies, Kyoto University, (Tokyo, Japan: Bijutsu Shuppansha, Showa 44, 1969), pls. 17-28, 43-56 (repro.).
Lin Shengzhi 林聖智,“北朝代における葬具の図像と機能:石棺床囲屛の墓主肖像と孝子伝図を例として,” (October 4, 2003), 215-216 (repro.).
Keith N. Knapp, Selfless Offspring: Filial Children and Social Order in Medieval China (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005) (repro.).
