Pagoda and Case
This intricately carved ivory pagoda was acquired in China by the American consul Samuel Shaw, who arrived in the port city of Canton (Guangzhou) in 1784 aboard the Empress of China—the first merchant ship sent there from the newly independent United States. The tower replicates the distinctive nine-story elevation and tiered roof eaves adorned with small bells of the famous "Porcelain Pagoda" of Nanjing, a fifteenth-century structure that was almost synonymous with China for Westerners.
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