A Rare Large Jade-Inset Gilt-Bronze Garment Hook
A Rare Large Jade-Inset Gilt-Bronze Garment Hook

EASTERN ZHOU DYNASTY

細節
A Rare Large Jade-Inset Gilt-Bronze Garment Hook
Eastern Zhou Dynasty
Cast in high relief with a large monster mask facing the dragon-head hook at one end, the eyes inlaid with black stone, and a small pale greenish-white jade bi incised on top with scrolls within raised borders inset between the horns, the white and brown jade bi in the center carved with commas and held in place by small serpent heads, the bodies of the two serpents grasped within the claws of the monster whose jaws grasp the third pale greenish-white bi at the other end, with an aperture between that monster mask and the partial taotie mask cast at the edge, with some green encrustation
8.5/8in. (12.2cm.) long

拍品專文

Garment hooks of all different types and sizes were made in the late Eastern Zhou period, but hooks of this large size, richness of materials and complexity of design must have been very costly and could have been afforded only by the most privileged. A comparable example was included in the exhibition, Inlaid bronze and related material from pre-Tang China, 11 June - 5 July 1991, no. 48 and now in the Miho Museum, Japan, illustrated in the Catalogue of the collection, 1997, pp. 190-191, no. 91, where it is noted that ornate belt hooks of this type were 'a product of the late fourth-third century B.C.', and that by the end of the century they were out of fashion and no longer found in later burials. See, also, the similar example in the Wellington Wang Collection illustrated on the cover of the catalogue of the collection, Belt Ornaments Through The Ages. The most famous example of this type, fashioned from gilt silver and with a jade hook, was excavated in 1950 from tomb number 5 at Guweicun, Hui Xian, Henan province, and is illustrated by Akiyama, et al., Arts of China: Recent Discoveries, Tokyo, 1968, p. 26, pl. 17.