The Ming Dynasty lion-dogs guarding the Oakland art museum
The statues serve as a protective force around the art museum’s forward-thinking exhibits and remarkable reminders of a deep and symbol-rich Chinese history.
OAKLAND – A resolute pair of ancient Chinese lion-dogs intricately carved from single slabs of white marble have flanked the entrance to the art museum on Northeastern University’s Oakland campus for 94 years.
The statues are not just there for aesthetics. They have an explicit purpose: to guard the art museum.
The Ming dynasty statues, also known as stone lions or Fu Dogs, are part of a centuries-old spiritual and architectural tradition intended to ward off evil spirits from important buildings, according to Shuishan Yu, associate professor of architecture at Northeastern. During the 2026 school year, the lion-dogs are said to repel any evil spirit seeking to lure students away from their studies or to distract visitors from appreciating the art within the Mills College Art Museum, he said.
Donated to the campus in 1933, the statues stand today as both a lasting protective force around the fresh, forward-looking art installations regularly featured inside the museum and remarkable reminders of a deep and symbol-rich Chinese history, museum director Stephanie Hanor said.
The statues were brought to America by William D. McCann, a prolific collector of ancient Chinese art, and delivered to the Oakland campus in 1933 by Albert M. Bender, a renowned art patron whose donations jump-started cultural development in the Bay Area, Hanor said.
The orientation and physical features of the sculptures follow traditional Chinese iconography adopted by architects during the Ming dynasty between 1368 and 1644, Yu said.
The lions — one male and one female — are on either side of the museum’s south-facing entrance. The male is intentionally positioned on the eastern (or yang) side and the female on the western (or yin) side, Yu told Northeastern Global News (NGN).
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Underneath the male’s right paw rests an embroidered ball, interpreted as a vessel that holds the elixir of life, according to Yu. Meanwhile, a small upturned lion cub wrestles beneath the left paw of the female lion, representing the spirit.
Small cracks and imperfections can be seen on the statues’ weathered forms, which feel pleasantly rough to the touch, like sandpaper, and twinkle with miniscule sparkles mixed into the marble. Shallow shadows are cast by the lions’ bumpy manes when the sun faces the museum, and moths find refuge in their shade in the afternoon.
But what’s inside the historic Oakland museum 一 which in 2025 celebrated its centennial 一 that merits eternal guardianship by these spiritual beast hybrids? Deep within the museum’s hidden temperature-controlled vaults are some 12,000 precious art objects, from Native American basketry and early 20th-century California paintings to embroidered silk fukusa from the Edo-period Japan and Southeast Asian wood carvings, Hanor said.
The museum’s high-ceilinged show space also holds pieces of its upcoming exhibit, “The Data at Hand: Data Physicalizations of Earth and Space.” Set to debut on Sept. 12, the exhibit marks the first collaboration between the Oakland museum and Gallery 360, Northeastern University’s contemporary art space in Boston.
The exhibit will consist of a collection of visual art pieces from creators across the United States that combine traditional craft materials with data information to explore the far-reaching effects of climate change, said Hanor. One sculpture, which is featured on the museum’s website, consists of woven basketry, wheat stalks and metal elements twisted into a colorful, three-dimensional collage.
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The lion-dogs will also watch over an array of Japanese weeping cherry trees that will be planted this summer along the museum’s open-air plaza, a nod to the museum’s reputation of holding a notable collection of Asian art pieces, said campus sustainability manager Andrew Gonzales.
But the question arises: why lions, especially since these kings among animals are not native to China?
The first indications of these types of guardian lion statues appear between the early third century and late sixth century, known as the Age of Disunion, Yu told NGN. They were initially used as funereal adornments and placed outside the main gates of imperial mausoleums, he said.
Sculptors erected one statue on either side of the “spirit route” leading to the tombs within the mausoleums, an architectural solution to what were perceived to be the structures’ metaphysical weak points, Yu said.
“While the physical walls and gates had the real physical protection, you also wanted a spiritual protection,” he said, referring to the ancient belief in the existence of prying entities seeking entrance. “An evil spirit could take on the appearance of a beautiful lady, it doesn’t have to be some kind of a ghost or frightening vampire.”
If the harmful spirits were allowed inside, they would create obstacles on Buddhist followers’ path to enlightenment and wisdom, Yu said. Or so the belief went.
In 589 C.E., after the Sui dynasty conquered the Chen dynasty and the nation was reunified, guardian lion statues and other stone animal hybrids were crafted more consistently, Yu said. While the majority still stand in a funereal context, the statues are also found outside government compounds, high officials’ residences and other notable edifices like the museum on Northeastern’s Oakland campus, he said.
Lion statues currently watch over Beijing’s Forbidden City, HSBC’s head office in Hong Kong and the Ming Tombs’ “spirit road” in Beijing.
The two donated to the Oakland museum appear to be more modern renditions of the earliest guardian lion statues, Yu said. Ancient Chinese sculptors first designed the lions to be realistic and intimidating, but later varieties appeared cuter and more dog-like, he said.
Rebecca Leung, archivist and librarian at the Oakland campus’s F.W. Olin Library, said a letter is held in the special collections vault from art collector McCann to the statues’ donor, Bender, dated October 12, 1933. In the short correspondence, McCann thanks Bender for his order of the “Antique Marble Fu-dogs,” Leung told NGN.
When the museum’s data visualization exhibit opens in September, the guardian lions will resume their long watch over the space, protecting gallery visitors from meddlesome spirits, Yu said.
Knowing students are inside, the spirits could also seek to influence how students process the information they encounter out in the world, Yu surmised. If allowed inside the museum, those spirits could force students to believe everything they read without a second thought, stealing their ability to think analytically, he said.
“That is a big ignorance,” Yu warned. “I hope these lions can give students a critical attitude to ward off those evil spirits that would be harmful for their knowledge.”
