Stone Pagoda of Heungbeopsa Temple 兴法寺石塔

Title
Stone Pagoda of Heungbeopsa Temple 兴法寺石塔
Year/Period
circa 1915 A.D.
Region
Shanghai
Dimension
Object size: 29.2,
Object size: 64.0 x 30.0 x 30.5 cm
Accession No.
2023-00329

This is a model of the Xing Fa Temple Pagoda 兴法寺in Gangwon Province (?), Korea. The pagoda measures 14.6 metres tall and is made of stone. It was constructed in 940 A.D. during the Goryeo dynasty.The model is one of a set of 84 carved after famous originals scattered throughout China, for the Chinese exhibition at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) in San Francisco, one of the first to represent the newly formed Republic of China. Scaled down at a ratio of 1:50, they were made by the Tushanwan 土山湾Workshop, a Christian orphanage in Shanghai that trained its residents in vocational art and crafts. The woodcarving workshop, supervised by the Bavarian-born Jesuit Aloysius Beck (1854-1931), employed both local and Western styles and techniques to produce figures of traditional Chinese gods alongside those of Catholic saints.