A BRONZE DAGGER

NORTHWEST CHINA, 7TH-6TH CENTURY BC

Details

A BRONZE DAGGER
NORTHWEST CHINA, 7TH-6TH CENTURY BC
The tapering double-edged blade has a raised median rib on each side and issues from a guard cast as a mask flanked by spirals at the base of the hollow hilt cast in relief on both sides with a stacked column of dragon heads with rolled snouts and curled crests which project along the edges and separate slits on the narrow sides, all below a larger mask with coiled snout, ruyi-shaped ears, and curled crest, which also has slits on the edge. All of the heads have circular eyes hollowed for inlay.
10 ¾ in. (27.3 cm.) long

Provenance

Christie’s New York, 1 December 1988, lot 140.
The Erwin Harris Collection, Miami, Florida.

Literature

J. F. So and E. C. Bunker, Traders and Raiders on China's Northern Frontier, Washington D.C., Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 1995, pp. 126-27, no. 43, and p. 49, col. pl. 10.
J. F. So,, 'Bronze Weapons, Harness and Personal Ornaments: Signs of Qin's Contacts with the Northwest', Orientations, November 1995, p. 38, fig. 4.

Lot Essay

Compare the similar dagger in the Idemitsu Art Museum dated to the Spring and Autumn period, included in the exhibition, Mounted Nomads of Asian Steppes - Chinese Northern Bronzes, Equine Cultural Affairs Foundation of Japan and Tokyo National Museum, 1997, no. 78. See, also, the similar dagger illustrated by A. Salmony, Sino-Siberian Art in the Collection of C. T. Loo, Paris, 1933, pl. XXXIX (6). In Traders and Raiders on China's Northern Frontier, the authors, J. So and E. Bunker, describe how the dagger in the Harris Collection was cast in one piece using a two-part mold, and mention a similar dagger dated to the 7th BC having been found at Baqitun, Fengxiang Xian, Shaanxi province.

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