Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Demon-Queller Zhong Kui
Not on view
The origins of the engrossing legends of Zhong Kui cannot be firmly established. In the best-known account, by Shen Gua (1031–1095), he was an unrecognized talent in the martial arts who appeared in a dream of the Tang emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–56) to kill a harassing demon.
Here, the fierce-looking Zhong Kui wears a hat with a pair of bud-shaped tails that is supposed to detect troublemaking demons. In popular belief Zhong Kui is a powerful guard against evil spirits, particularly at the Double Fifth Festival, on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, when his image is displayed in households to prevent diseases and other misfortunes associated with the impending heat of summer.
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