A PAIR OF SMALL GOLD 'TIGER-MASK' ORNAMENTS

NORTHWEST CHINA, 5TH-4TH CENTURY BC OR LATER

Details

A PAIR OF SMALL GOLD 'TIGER-MASK' ORNAMENTS
NORTHWEST CHINA, 5TH-4TH CENTURY BC OR LATER
Each small, rounded gold sheet ornament is worked in repoussé as a tiger head with bulging eyes and pointed ears, the tiger's stripes indicated by curved grooves.
Each 1 in. ( 2.6 cm.) wide; weight 2.7 and 2.5 g

Provenance

Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, no. CK30.
Sotheby's London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 10.

Literature

Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 30.
Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 28.

Exhibited

Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, 1954-55, cat. no. 30.

Lot Essay

These fine masks are similar in detail to the heads of the four tigers seen attacking an ox, which form the decoration of four rectangular gold plaques found in the cache of gold and silver at Aluchaideng, Ih Ju League, Inner Mongolia in 1972, which is dated late Warring States period. One of these plaques is illustrated by Yang Junchang, Paul Jett and Chen Jianli, Gold in Ancient China: 2000-200 BCE, Beijing, 2017, p. 216, Fig. 4-35 b, along with other gold ornaments from the cache. The authors describe the ornamental plaques as having been made of beaten gold sheet "whose motifs were inspired by different animals."

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