Object size: 221.5 x 78.0 x 78.0 cm
This is a model of one of the tallest pagodas in China, the Three Towers Temple Pagoda (Santa si 三塔寺), which towers at 99 metres in height. The brick pagoda is located in Dali, Yunnan, and was built during the Nanzhao Kingdom in 850 A.D.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.
