Object Name: Doorway panels

Artist: Unknown

Culture: Paiwan peoples

Place of Origin: Taiwan

Date/Era: Early 20th century

Dimensions: H: 185.0 cm, W: 41.0 cm, D: 9.0 cm (H: 72.8 in, W: 16.1 in, D: 3.5 in)

Medium/Materials: Wood, porcelain, bottle caps

Credit Line: Fowler Museum at UCLA. The H.P. and J.F. Ullman Collection.

Accession Number: X72.833

These decorated panels flanked the doors of Paiwan ancestral houses. They were carved and named for the ranking ancestors of the house. Although the two panels are similar in style and represent male and female ancestors, their slight difference in scale precludes their being an ancestral couple from a single house.

Source: Gallery wall text, Fowler in Focus: Doors in Global Perspective, 2008.

See also: Marla C. Berns, World Arts, Local Lives: The Collections of the Fowler Museum at UCLA. Fowler Museum, Los Angeles, 2014.