SPRING AND AUTUMN PERIOD, LATE 6TH-EARLY 5TH CENTURY BC

Details

A BRONZE AND GOLD HARNESS FITTING
SPRING AND AUTUMN PERIOD, LATE 6TH-EARLY 5TH CENTURY BC
The circular fitting is comprised of three cast gold animal masks raised on bronze posts that project from the top of the domed bronze ring, the outward-facing masks with protruding tongue, small nose, and bulbous eyes below small ears and curved horns.
2 1/8 in. (5.4 cm.) diam.

Provenance

Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, no.CK3.
Sotheby's London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 12.

Literature

Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 3.
Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 3.

Exhibited

Copenhagen, Dansk Kunstindustrimuseum, Kinas Kunst i Svensk og Dansk eje, 1950, cat. no. 166.
Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, 1954-55, cat. no. 3.
New York, Asia House Gallery, Chinese Gold, Silver and Porcelain. The Kempe Collection, 1971, cat. no.2, an exhibition touring the United States and shown also at nine other museums.

Lot Essay

Based on similar fittings excavated from various Warring States sites, this fitting and others like it appear to be harness fittings. A similar fitting was excavated from a large pit filled with the remains of chariots and horses at a Warring States site at Fengxiang Doufu village in Shaanxi province. Two similar fittings, with cast gold masks, have been published. One is illustrated by Peter Y. K. Lam, ed., Celestial Creations: Art of the Chinese Goldsmith, The Cheng Xun Tang Collection, vol. I, Art Museum, Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007, pp. 62-63, no. A29; the other by Simon Kwan and Sun Ji, Chinese Gold Ornaments, Hong Kong, 2003, pp. 198-99, pl. 60. Also illustrated, pl. 198, is an example with inward-facing, silver masks surmounting each post, excavated from the tomb of King Cuo (r. 327-313 BC), State of Zhongshan, in Lingshou, Pingshan county, Hebei province, and also by Han Wei and Christian Deydier, Ancient Chinese Gold, Paris, 2001, p. 53, no. 86. A similar pair with gold foil-covered bronze masks, from the collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, sold at Christie's New York, 26 March 2010, lot 1290.

More from Masterpieces of Early Chinese Gold and Silver

View All