Naomi asked to make a post about these. She looks at them every day and wants to share them. These are scenes from the door to the girl’s bedroom. The story we often hear told is that these Chinese artworks (doors, chairs, wall pieces) were items sent to LC Smith by the Empress of China in 1912 for the Smith Tower Chinese Room.
I recovered them from under the building in 1997. They were grimy and in pieces. The ones that could be cleaned up and put together, I built into the apt so that they would again be part of the building.
You can probably imagine that the carvings spawned bedtime stories. They usually start with an explorer (us) approaching their ruler to request supplies for a journey to a yet undiscovered land. Then we come up with the actual expeditions. And of course, those lead us to discoveries of marvel-filled foreign cultures with cures and wisdom that can be brought back to save our homeland.