WARRING STATES PERIOD/EARLY WESTERN HAN DYNASTY (475 BC - AD 8)

Details

TWO INLAID BRONZE BELTHOOKS
WARRING STATES PERIOD/EARLY WESTERN HAN DYNASTY (475 BC - AD 8)
One with faceted shaft, the center facet inlaid with four white jade plaques alternating with panels of opposing triangles in silver and gold sheet enclosing scroll motifs, the narrow side facets inlaid with alternating strips of gold and silver creating a striped effect, with geometric scrolls inlaid on the slender neck of the bird-head hook; the other cast as a gilt-bronze dragon with raised head and sinuous body enclosing three white glass circular plaques, the dragon's eyes inlaid in turquoise, with a well-cast dragon-head hook at the other end
7½ and 6 5/8 in. (19 and 16.8 cm.) long (2)

Provenance

Christie's, New York, 4 June 1992, lots 191 and 192.

Lot Essay

The first garment hook is similar in type to one from the Stoclet collection, illustrated by H.F.E. Visser, Asiatic Art, New York, 1948, pp. 168-9, pl. 44 (no. 64). Both the Stoclet example and the present garment hook are faceted and inlaid with square jade plaques surrounded by similar gold and silver inlaid geometric decoration. The second garment hook with the plaques enclosed within the graceful curves of the sinuous body of the dragon is related to one in the British Museum illustrated by W. Watson, The Arts of China to AD 900, New Haven and London, p. 47, fig. 90 (middle), which is in the form of coiled dragons clutching small jade plaques.

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