5. Cosmetic Boxes

Beauty products have always been in demand and have been widely traded. Commonly used was black eye shadow and eye lash mascara which  came from lead or antimony and is found across Africa, Asia and India,  During the Tang dynasty the taste for the exotic:-  Iranian, Indian and Turkish –  permeated every class. The poet Yuan Chen at the end of the 8^th C wrote:

Ever since the Western horsemen began raising smut and dust,

fur and fleece, rank and rancid,  have filled Chang’an and Lo’yang.

Women make themselves western matrons by the study of western makeup; Entertainers present western tunes, in their devotion to western music.

Chang’an was an ancient capital of China and is the modern-day city of Xian. Before Beijing it was the start of the Silk Road. Western means anything west of Gansu province, i.e Central Asia.

The buff circular box with a fish motif on the lid is from 960- 1279 and the pair of birds from 1127-1279.