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Title: “MOONCAKES”

Image Size: 38” W x 26.625” H
Paper Size: 38” W x 26.625” H (unframed)  Available
Edition: 15
Artist's Proofs: 3
Printer's Proofs:


Story:
In China, Autumn is welcomed by both the changing of colors and the lunar festival traditionally held in late September. A traditional treat of mooncakes is made to eat under the bright harvest moon as the children carry brightly lit lanterns. But in the 14th century, as China chafed under Mongol rule, thoughts of rebellion were everywhere. But since public gatherings were banned, how to coordinate thousands of people to rise up? The rebel leader, Zhu Yuanzhang received permission from the Mongols to distribute mooncakes throughout the Empire for the festival. Riders on swift horses were dispatched to tell the bakers to bake inside each mooncake a message of when to attack. They did and they overthrew the Mongols and ushered in the Ming Dynasty.


Notes on Original Work of Art:
Acrylic, fluorescent and metallic paints on heavy 2-ply watercolor paper, veiled over with hand-made Japanese rice lace, bathed in a mixture of archival beeswax and UV-resistant polymers, with insets of mid-1800’s Pali Sanskrit Buddhist prayer book pages made of waxed papyrus, accented with 4 silver balls from a late 1800’s Akha tribal hat from Thailand, with outside border panels wrapped in early and late 1800’s fabrics from a Mongolian wedding banner, with top and bottom panels wrapped first with late 1800’s Akha shoulder bag from Hill tribe in Thailand (with same silver pieces over prayer book pages), then wrapped with late 1800’s Lakai pouch with tassels from Uzbekistan, all mounted onto archival museum board.

Notes on Giclée:
1. The entire image of the horse has been re-painted and hand-embellished by the Artist using 26 acrylic and iridescent paints accented with heavy palette work.

2. The aspen trees in the background are hand-embellished by the Artist using four fluorescent paint colors.

3. Each silver medallion is branded with the Chinese symbol for horse, “ma” in metallic paint.

4. The image of metal balls at each corner are enhanced with metallic paint.

Printed using archival inks on fine art watercolor paper.


Click for Enlarged
Section of Art
Click for Enlarged
Section of Art

Instructions for saving the images for your gallery's website:
Click for Mac or Windows self-extracting files that contains all three jpegs of the above title.

This website and all images contained on these pages are ©2010 by Michelle Samerjan.

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