Lot Essay
While cloisonn/ae models of quails, cranes, blackbirds and doves are well-known, models of hawks appear to be much rarer. Compare the detailed feathers on the present example with similar work on a pair of blackbirds in the Osterreichisches Museum fur Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, illustrated in Europa und die Kaiser von China, Frankfurt, 1985, p. 179, no. 100. Another cloisonn/ae model of a hawk was sold at Sotheby's London, 15 October 1968, lot 29 but no other examples appear to have been published.