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‪The cultic image, the matter par excellence of the relationship between the living and the dead, is not an immediate given, accepted by all and at all times. It has oscillated between iconomachy and iconoduly, between disparaging and justifying discourses, between often contradictory theories and practices. In this article, I use literary sources to take a closer look at the upheavals that images of ancestors and masters underwent over time, from the beginning of the Common Era onwards, blending biological and spiritual genealogies, and the role and type they accorded the representation of the dead. I thus endeavour to analyze the so-called Chinese religions —Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism— in a transversal manner, so as to bring to light the differentiated regime of the living’s worship of the dead.‪