WESTERN HAN DYNASTY (206 BC-AD 8)

Details

A RARE AND FINE GILT-BRONZE FIGURE OF A BEAR
WESTERN HAN DYNASTY (206 BC-AD 8)
The seated figure well cast in an attitude of pleasure as it scratches it right ear, the triangular head lowered and the mouth open to show the tongue lolling to one side, the soft, fleshy body finely incised with wavy lines suggesting fur and with finer and more closely arranged lines defining the brows, the ruff, the edges of the forelegs and the small pointed tail
3 in. (7.6 cm.) high

Provenance

Christies, New York, 20 November 1979, lot 76.
Christies, New York, 3 June 1988, lot 21.

Exhibited

Greenwich, Connecticut, The Bruce Museum, Flora and Fauna: Themes and Symbolism in the Decorative Arts of China, 23 June - 9 Sept 2007.

Lot Essay

A very similar gilt-bronze bear dated to the Western Han dynasty, formerly in the collection of Senator Hugh Scott, Washington DC, was included in the exhibition, Ancient Chinese bronzes and gilt bronzes from the Wessen and other collections, Eskenazi Ltd., London, July 1980, no. 22, where the present figure is noted. It is very likely that these two gilt-bronze bears were originally part of a set of four intended as mat weights. For a full discussion of mat weights see Michelle C. Wang, et al., A Bronze Menagerie: Mat Weights of Early China, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, 2006, where other bear-form weights of larger size (15.7 and 13.7) in The Cleveland Museum of Art and the Saint Louis Art Museum respectively, are illustrated, pp. 88-9, nos. 5 and 6. The authors discuss bear imagery during the Western Han and the bear's associations with "military prowess, shamanism and immortality" (p. 87).

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