Location info and some photos withheld. As of my last visit, this mural site is vulnerable to theft or destruction. I have withheld the location beneath the county level and any photographs (of steles, signs, scenery, etc.) that might identify the place. If you are an accredited scholar and you have a good reason to want to see this information, email me and we’ll talk about it.
Structure Type: Village Temple 村廟.
Location: Yangyuan County, Hebei Province 河北省陽原縣. The temple is located outside the south gate of the old village fort, on a rise slightly to the south-west, where it overlooks the fields.
Period: Undated. 18th-19th century on style.
Artist: Unknown.
Mural Contents: The temple contains three shrines, from right to left (east to west) these are to Lord Guan 關公, to the Dragon Kings 龍王, and to the Goddesses 娘娘.
The Lord Guan Hall 老爺殿 has extremely damaged panel-series murals depicting scenes from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三國演義.
The central Dragon King Hall 龍王殿 has the standard dragon-king scene, in which the Five Kings fly out from the Crystal Palace 水晶宮 to dispense rain on the world beneath. This room is likewise very heavily damaged, but a few bits survive.
The most intact and interesting hall is the westernmost, the Goddesses Hall 娘娘殿. The two side-wall images show the Goddesses’ attendants preparing food. In one scene, a woman carries steamers for dumplings, while another woman appears to be bending down to rummage beneath the counter. The central wall of the shrine would have been located behind the statues on the altar. This shows a trompe-l’œil scene of curtains and wood. Hanging on the wall is a string of prayer beads and a pendant, rendered in beautiful western-inspired chiaroscuro with a cast shadow on the wall behind. This very realistic image is not a fluke – another one quite similar to it exists at the Shrine of the Harmonies in nearby Hunyuan County 渾源縣律呂神祠.
Other Notes: I photographed this shrine three times, each time badly. The first time, in spring 2014, I took a few bad photos without the camera flash. Later on in 2018 I photographed it again, more completely this time, but did so on some strange camera light-setting that made all the photos turn orange. After I realized my mistake I went back to do it again, but by this point was so sick of photographing the place that I did only a cursory job. Living out of a car in rural China engenders a sort of exhaustion.
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