imitation currency

A sheet of funerary money, rectangular shape, with yellow pigment to represent gold. At the centre is a red square impression in the style of a seal, coated with silver and gold foil and decorated with a large 'shou' character, meaning longevity. This is flanked by two Gods of Wealth. At the top is a bat, the manufacturer's label is at the bottom (Chen's Village: Xiang Li). The four corners are inscribed with the Chinese characters fu, shou, kang, ning, meaning happiness, longevity, health and peace. These are positioned within a key-fret border. Such sheets would be folded in the form of an ingot and burnt at a funeral, for use by ancestors in the afterlife.

Collection Information

These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.

The database sometimes uses language taken from historical documents to help research, which may now appear outdated and even offensive. The database also includes information on objects that are considered secret or sacred by some communities.

If you have any further information about objects in our collections or can suggest corrections to our information, please contact us: enquiry@horniman.ac.uk