Antique & Vintage Postcards

Head bowed toward the earth beneath bare winter branches, a powerfully built ox moves with quiet determination across the ancient silk — this is the first ox from Han Huang's legendary Tang Dynasty scroll Five Oxen (五牛图), painted around 785 CE and now treasured as a Grade-1 National Treasure at the Palace Museum in Beijing. Han, a devoted statesman who reportedly identified with the ox's patient labor, painted each of the five animals with individual personality; this first beast, hunched and earthward-gazing against skeletal branches, carries a mood of austere resilience. China Post reproduced all five panels as a 1985 New Year postal stationery set, each card pre-printed with a 4-fen red ox stamp — a fitting zodiac-year tribute to one of Chinese art history's most iconic works.