A Rare Engraved and Beaten Silver Plaque of a Ram

TANG DYNASTY (618-907)

細節

A Rare Engraved and Beaten Silver Plaque of a Ram
Tang dynasty (618-907)
Cut from thin silver sheet and hammered and chased as a long-haired ram with exaggeratedly full body, long horns and slender hoofed legs, shown fleeing with mouth open, the body engraved with hair markings that accentuate the sense of powerful movement beneath the animal's long and heavy coat
5 3/4in. (14.6cm.) long, box and stand
Falk Collection no. 541.

展覽

Neolithic to Ming, Chinese Objects - The Myron S. Falk Collection, Northampton, Massachusetts, Smith College Museum of Art, 1957, no. 20.
The Arts of the T'ang Dynasty, Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, 1957, no. 351.
Early Chinese Gold and Silver, New York, China House Gallery, China Institute in America, 1971, no. 58.
Chinese Gold and Silver in American Collections, Dayton, Ohio, Dayton Art Institute, 1984, no. 57.

拍品專文

A nearly identical silver plaque in the Santa Barbara Museum of Art was also included in the exhibition, Chinese Gold and Silver in American Collections, no. 58.

This plaque has been identified in the past as an ibex, but it may represent a long-haired ram or goat. The open mouth and wild eye combined with the dynamic presentation of movement, suggest that the animal is fleeing from a pursuer. In the entry for the Los Angeles exhibition there is a reference to a similar ibex represented on a stone slab illustrated in the catalogue for An Exhibition of Chinese Stone Sculptures, C.T. Loo and Co., New York, 1940, no. 37, pl. XXXIII.