Coral deity

As per usual, Kui Xing, the god of literature, is represented as standing on the head of a giant sea turtle.[Cf] What makes this image unique is the fact that the sculpture of Kui Xing has been carved out of a single branch of coral, whose natural shape defined the shape of the god’s clothes, arms and legs. Coral branches from the Mediterranean Sea were imported to eighteenth-century China through Guangzhou by the British East India Company on a large scale.[Lacey 2016]

Furthermore, coral branches were given to emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties by European as well as Asian embassies and feature prominently in images of tribute givers. The Taiwanese scholar Shih Ching-fei was the first to write a publication about this coral sculpture of Kui Xing in 2009.[Cf]