NORTHERN WEI DYNASTY, CIRCA 6TH CENTURY

Three iron pins can be seen in the belly of the demon figure and flanking the flared nostrils of the taotie mask, indicating that the mask would have been attached to the surface of either a door or a coffin. The mask is very similar to one included in the 15th Anniversary Catalogue, Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, 1981, pl. 1163. Another from the Frederick M. Mayer Collection of Chinese Art was sold at Christie's London, 24-25 June 1974, lot 189, where the Falk example is mentioned in the footnote. Another mask of this type, with a small figure of a squatting demon centering a pair of dragons and a pair of lions cast in openwork between the upright horns of the mask, is illustrated by A.J. Koop, Early Chinese Bronzes, London, 1924, pl. 96 (C). See, also, the related bronze figure of a demon squatting with hands placed on his bent knees, and wings rising from his upper arms, included in the exhibition, Ancient Chinese Art, The Ernest Erickson Collection, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987, no. 57. It, too, has an iron spot where the figure is pierced with an iron nail just below the mouth.