A PAIR OF ORDOS GILT-BRONZE RECTANGULAR PLAQUES

Details

A PAIR OF ORDOS GILT-BRONZE RECTANGULAR PLAQUES
2ND CENTURY B.C.

Each cast in low relief with a pair of mythical, winged horse-like animals shown kneeling towards the outer edge, their back legs impossibly thrown up and over their backs and their bodies decorated with striated reserves, their long, striped tails terminating in eared raptor heads, all crowded within a double rope-twist border, each with two loops on the reverse, turquoise and rust encrustation--4 1/4 in. (10.8 cm.) long (2)

Lot Essay

A very similar pair of gilt-bronze plaques was included in the exhibition of Ancient Chinese and Ordos Bronzes, Hong Kong Museum of Art, October 12 to December 2, 1990, and illustrated by Rawson and Bunker in the Catalogue, no. 225, where they are identified as being from North China and Inner Mongolia and where two identical pairs are mentioned as having been excavated at Xichagou, Xifeng, northeast Liaoning province, and at Daodunzi in Tongxin, Ningxia. The latter pair is illustrated in Kaogu xuebao,1988.3, p. 344, fig. 9:13 and pl. 20:22, and pl. 15:5