A VERY RARE BRONZE FITTING

WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 10TH-9TH CENTURY BC

Details

A VERY RARE BRONZE FITTING
WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 10TH-9TH CENTURY BC
Of slightly curved profile, the sides finely cast in low relief with two confronted peacocks, with plume-like crests and long forward-arched coiled tails with 'eye'-form cells for inlay, all reserved on a leiwen ground, the domed top cast with a whorl pattern of feathers incorporating two birds' eyes, with dark silver patina and malachite encrustation
2 7/8 in. (7.3 cm.) high, box

Provenance

Bernard Berenson Collection, Florence.
Adolphe Stoclet Collection, Brussels.
Eskenazi Ltd., London, 1975.
British Rail Pension Fund; Sotheby's, London, 12 December 1989, lot 18.
Eskenazi Ltd., London, 6 July 1990.

Literature

Kümmel, Jøorg Trübner zum Gedächtnis, 1930, pl. 22 (b and c).
Visser, Asiatic Art in Private Collections of Holland and Belgium, 1948, pl. 38, no. 43.

Exhibited

Ancient Chinese Bronzes from the Stoclet and Wessén Collections, Eskenazi Ltd., 1975, no. 5.
The Glorious Traditions of Chinese Bronzes, Singapore, 2000, no. 30.
Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 2002-2006.

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Lot Essay

A line drawing of a reconstructed horse-drawn chariot of Zhou dynasty date, depicting how a fitting of this type would have been used to cover the forward-facing end of the curved central shaft, is illustrated in Kaogu, 1980:5, p. 454, fig. 14.

The depiction of peacocks is a rare interpretation of the elaborate bird decoration more normally found on bronzes of middle Zhou date. However, peacocks with long arching crest and tail feathers form the main decoration on a you, of Middle Western Zhou date, illustrated in The Sumitomo Bronzes, Kyoto, 1994, vol. I, p. 42, no. 23; and also on a gui, illustrated by B. Karlgren, A Catalogue of the Chinese Bronzes in the Alfred F. Pillsbury Collection, Minneapolis, 1952, no. 36, pl. 53.

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