Object size: 145.5 x 51.0 x 51.0 cm
This is a model of the Pagoda of Amitabha (Amituofo ta 阿弥陀佛塔). The brick and wood pagoda was built during the Ming dynasty in Taiyuan, Shanxi, and measures 47.5 metres tall. 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.
