Coffin Box Panel: Four Figures Flanking a Doorway,

10th–early 11th century

After the fall of the Tang dynasty in 907, a new regime arose in northeastern Asia. Ruled by the Yelü clan of the seminomadic Khitan (Ch. Qidan 契丹) people, the Liao dynasty controlled present-day Mongolia, eastern Russia, northern Korea, and northern China. Wealthy Liao families adopted a range of Chinese cultural practices, including the construction of richly decorated under-ground tombs. In these funerary panels, the figures, clouds, and distant terrain recall the style of earlier Tang- dynasty paintings. The figures, however, are unmistakably Khitan. The men sport typical Liao hairstyles, with long locks in front of each ear, and several wear Liao-style boots. The hybrid features of the paintings suggest that the panels were painted for a Liao patron located near the empire’s southern border with Song-dynasty territory, in the present-day northern China provinces of Inner Mongolia and Liaoning.