WESTERN HAN DYNASTY, 2ND-1ST CENTURY BC

For a drawing of a reconstructed crossbow from Zhongzhoulu, Luoyang, Henan province, see T. Lawton, Chinese Art of the Warring States Period; Change and Continuity, 480-222 BC, Freer Gallery of Art, 1982, p. 66. The silver scrolls on the present pair of crossbow fittings is more fluid, rounded and foliate in nature than the more geometric scrolls one sees on Warring States examples. For scrollwork of this type see the hu from the tomb of Liu Sheng at Mancheng, Hebei province, dated to the Western Han period, ca. 113 BC, illustrated by C. Mackenzie, 'Adaptation and Invention: Chinese Bronzes of the Eastern Zhou and Han Periods, Orientations, June 1993, p. 66, fig. 21.