Antique & Vintage Postcards

A luminous golden-tan ox turns its great horned head toward the viewer, tongue lolling, muscles rendered in fluid ink lines that have captivated collectors for over a millennium — this is one of five postcards reproducing Han Huang's celebrated Tang Dynasty scroll Five Oxen (五牛图), here depicting the fourth ox, inscribed with classical poetry and collector seals accumulated across centuries of imperial ownership. Han, a high Tang-dynasty official and passionate amateur painter, created the scroll around 785 CE; it passed through the hands of emperors and was nearly lost before being repatriated to the Palace Museum in Beijing. China Post issued this set of five illustrated postal stationery cards in 1985 to celebrate the Year of the Ox, each bearing a pre-printed 4-fen stamp depicting a stylized ox papercut in red — a joyful nod to the zodiac animal whose image Han immortalized.