鳳虎形台座

The stand is composed of a lower section of two tigers set parallel to each other, their legs bent. Each tiger is straddled by a curling-up nosed, chi dragon that bites it in the middle of the back, and between the dragons rises a phoenix, attached to the whole by its extended wings. Images of tigers, birds (the phoenix) and dragons often adorned supports for musical instruments used in ceremonies at ancestral burial sites. Designes such as that illustrated here, where animals are portrayed in fierce combat, are prominent on bronze implements produced from the end of the Spring and Autumn period through the Warring States period.