A Rare Bronze Animal-Form Corner Fitting

WARRING STATES PERIOD

细节
A Rare Bronze Animal-Form Corner Fitting
Warring States Period
Cast as a raptor arching backwards with hooked beak open in a scream of pain and taloned front feet raised as its wings are grasped in the jaws of two attacking lions crouching to either side, the bird finely detailed with feather markings and decorative bands and the lions with archaistic scrolls and decorative motifs detailing their bodies and long, curved tails
12in. (30.5cm.) across

拍品专文

There does not appear to be a comparable corner fitting of this
particular design with the combination of lions biting on the bird.

The motif of the biting beast is, however, to be found on other Warring States pieces. Refer to the pair of sheng ding, each with four rampant sinuous beasts biting the vessel rim, from the tomb of the Marquis of Zeng and inscribed with his name, included in the exhibition, War and Ritual, Empress Place Museum, Singapore, 1993. Another Warring States beast with similar crouching stance and arched body from the Seattle Art Museum is included by K. Foster in A Handbook of Ancient Chinese Bronzes, Claremont, 1949, p. 93, no. 102.

For a comparable bird with hooked beak, crest, and finely incised feathers, see the lid of a hu from Taiyuan Jinshengcun, Tomb 251 illustrated by Li Xiating and Liang Ziming in Art of the Houma Foundry, Princeton, 1996, p. 52, fig. 3.