Japanese, 18th or early 19th century
Gong with Chrysanthemum Decorations
Bronze with enamel paint
Bequest of Herman B Wells
Campus Art Collection

This gong, purchased by Herman Wells in 1968, stood on the floor in his dining room in the Tenth Street House, where it was used to summon guests to dinner. Wells believed that bells like this were hung at the entrance to a domestic compound to be “sounded whenever there was a visitor entering or a visitor leaving.”

The enamel decorations may allude to the household: the phoenix is a bird associated with peace and prosperity, as well as a particular ancestral lineage, while chrysanthemums—one of the four seasonal flowers, usually associated with fall—also symbolize the Japanese imperial family.

© 2001 Indiana University Art Museum
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Photographs of artworks: Michael Cavanagh and Kevin Montague.
Photographs of Herman B Wells: Courtesy of IU Office of Communications and Marketing.