---
title: "Clay & Colour — Painting the Rabbit God, the Beijing Figure Born From a Plague | LyrikTrip"
description: "Two hours in a Beijing studio painting a Tu'er Ye — the clay Rabbit God that has been made here for over four hundred years, and became national intangible heritage in 2014. You take it home the same day."
type: "experience"
source: "film"
url: "https://www.lyriktrip.com/de-DE/experience/beijing-clay-rabbit-painting"
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![A Tu'er Ye clay figure — long ears, a three-lobed mouth, gold armour](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4582bec60cdb.webp)

Beijing · Two hours, booked on its own

# Two hours, and *you take him home*

You are handed a bare clay Rabbit God — Beijing's four-hundred-year-old moon-festival figure — and a maker shows you how to bring him up in colour. The one you paint is the one you leave with.

- Where: A Beijing studio · Inside the old city · address sent after booking
- How long: About 2 hours
- You leave with: The figure itself · Painted by you, dry enough to travel
兔儿爷

LyrikTrip · a standalone workshop

## Clay*& Colour*

- About 2 hours
- A maker demonstrates
- National heritage, 2014
- You keep what you paint

## What you get

### Two hours, and *this is what you walk out with*

### You'll see

- A working Beijing clay-painting studio, not a classroom
- The full range on the shelves — **zodiac series, old-architecture series, herbal-medicine series**
- A maker doing in ninety seconds the line that will take you ten minutes

### You'll handle

- Raw clay bodies straight from the mould, still chalk-grey
- Mineral pigment, mixed on the spot
- A brush fine enough that you will hold your breath using it

### You'll hear

- Why he carries **a pestle for grinding medicine** — the jade rabbit was sent down to stop a plague
- What the Palace Museum's own late-Qing Rabbit God looks like, and why he's riding a deer
- A fifth-generation maker on why the craft is easy to start and very hard to stay in

### You'll take home

- **The figure you painted**, dry enough to travel
- The order of operations — ground colour, pattern, face last
- A souvenir nobody else has, because nobody paints two the same

## Act I — Who he is

![A Tu'er Ye figure in pale face paint and coloured robes](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/46d4174292b1.webp)

![A pair of Tu'er Ye figures on red stands](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/550578d5c207.webp)

![Tu'er Ye figures displayed in a heritage exhibition space](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/dd0f811b8b55.webp)

*Tu'er Ye* — Lord Rabbit. Gold helmet, gold armour, a pestle for grinding medicine, and a command banner at his back.

Every mid-autumn, Beijing households used to set one out and make offerings to it. The ritual has all but gone; the figure stayed.

In 2014 the craft entered the national intangible heritage list. *Four hundred years, and still made by hand.*

## 01 — The face he has

![A pale unpainted Tu'er Ye figure on a stand](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b917f2f1871b.webp)

14:15 What you are given

### Rabbit above, officer below

Long pointed ears · mountain brows · a three-lobed mouth

The mould has done the anatomy: the long pointed ears, the hill-shaped brows, the split rabbit lip, the armour plates and the socket for the banner. The Palace Museum holds a late-Qing one 31 centimetres tall, dressed as a civil official and riding side-saddle on a sika deer. Late-Qing makers built them over a metre high; the smallest were three inches. Yours is somewhere in between, and entirely grey.

## 02 — The order

![A maker demonstrating Tu'er Ye painting at a red-covered table](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/c25b65cb15b2.webp)

14:40 Demonstration first

### Ground colour first, pattern after

选泥 · 浸泡 · 摔打 · 压坯 · 打底 · 彩绘

The full sequence runs: choose the clay, soak it, beat it, press the mould, lay the ground, then paint. You join at the fifth step. Flat ground colour goes down over the whole figure and has to dry before any pattern touches it — the maker demonstrates on their own piece so you can see exactly where a wrong order becomes unfixable.

## 03 — The face

![A finished Tu'er Ye with painted face on a red ground](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/18ee590aed79.webp)

15:20 Left until last

### The face goes on last

Powder-white ground · then the brows, then the mouth

The face is left to the end, and it is the part everyone gets tense about. A powder-white ground, then the two hill-shaped brows, then the split lip. Up to that point you were decorating an object. The moment the brows land, it acquires an expression — and you will find you have opinions about it.

## Why it survived

![A quiet craft studio with work laid out](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/d8354ec699ff.webp)

Four hundred years is not automatic

### “Easy to start. *The further in you go, the harder it gets.*”

That is Zhang Zhongqiang, a fifth-generation Beijing clay-painting maker, on his own craft — and on why so few people stay with it. He keeps a small shop on Yangmeizhu Xiejie in Xicheng, and makes a case that the material and the method must stay traditional while the imagery has to belong to now.

So today's Tu'er Ye come in series: Beijing's central axis, old architecture, Chinese medicinal herbs, the twelve zodiac animals, even space programmes and World Cups.

He has also travelled — Tu'er Ye figures have been shown in France, Italy, Pakistan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Estonia and Finland. Which is a long way for a rabbit that was originally sent to one city to stop an epidemic.

## The table, unrolled

### What is on the table

Clay · ground · brush · banner

![A Tu'er Ye stall photographed in Beijing in the 1930s, the maker sitting beside it](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/92bceb1f6713.webp)

**The fine brush**细笔 · everything that matters

![Hands painting a small figure](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/ea138e40eff8.webp)

**Your hands**上色 · steadier than you expect

![Paint pots and brushes on a table](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/03047c8e9dd8.webp)

**The palette**颜料 · ground colour first

![A single Tu'er Ye — armour, tiger mount, three-lobed mouth](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/7d7f791e79f4.webp)

**The armour**金盔金甲 · and a medicine pestle

![Shelves of Tu'er Ye figures at a Liulichang shop in Beijing](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/8aacd2c41de4.webp)

**A finished pair**成品 · no two the same

## Practicalities

- Duration: About 2 hours
- Where: A Beijing studio — address on booking
- Heritage status: Clay sculpture (Beijing Tu'er Ye), national list, 2014
- Guide: English-speaking, throughout
- Skill needed: None
- Ages: Works from about 6 up
- You keep: The figure you painted
## End card

![Painted Tu'er Ye lined up on red cushions](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/6664ea238bbf.webp)

### Book *a rabbit*

Two hours, any afternoon, on its own. Tell us a date and how many of you there are.

[**Start planning](/contact)

## Sources

**资料与图片来源 · Sources**

文字依据：新华社《兔年说兔｜这位兔儿爷火了400多年》、新京报《展开说说》、北京市文化和旅游局。四百年传承、玉兔捣药治瘟疫的传说、故宫藏清晚期兔儿爷尺寸、「选泥—浸泡—摔打—压坯—打底—彩绘」工序、2014 年第四批国家级非遗、传承人原话，均出自上述来源。

本页**兔儿爷实物照片取自北京市文旅局与新华社报道页**，是真实的兔儿爷；工具与手部特写为 Unsplash 通用图。

已获授权使用：源站机构图（新华社、央视、各级政府网站及企业官网）的使用许可已由 LyrikTrip 取得。

原始出处

- [北京市文化和旅游局｜北京国际非遗周兔儿爷项目](https://whlyj.beijing.gov.cn/zwgk/xwzx/gzdt/202510/t20251027_4240700.html)
- [新华社｜兔年说兔：这位兔儿爷火了400多年](https://www.news.cn/2023-01/22/c_1129307591.htm)

图库占位

- a person is working on a piece of art — Matias Luge · Unsplash
- a group of colorful figurines — Brett Wharton · Unsplash
- a group of ceramic figurines of different colo — Lipetskaya Zemlya · Unsplash
- A person painting a statue of a demon — Monojit Dutta · Unsplash
- A child molds a small clay figure on a table — Mazin Omron · Unsplash
- assorted color round plastic container — laura adai · Unsplash
- a table topped with lots of art supplies — Ashe Walker · Unsplash

2026-08 换图与授权

- 兔儿爷货架（cc-done／end）—— Tu'er Ye on display at Liulichang East St，N509FZ · CC BY-SA 4.0
- 单件兔儿爷（cc-face）—— Tuerye - Beijing Rabbit God · CC BY-SA 3.0
- 1930 年代兔儿爷摊子（cc-brush）—— 亜細亜大観「兎兒爺攤子」· Public domain

以上列表中若干图库条目已在 2026-08 的换图中被取代，保留仅作历史记录；当前实际使用的图片以本节列出的为准。