A SILVERY BRONZE MIRROR

EASTERN HAN DYNASTY (25-220)

Details

A SILVERY BRONZE MIRROR
EASTERN HAN DYNASTY (25-220)
The central knop surrounded by four petals alternating with four characters, within narrow hatchured and plain borders and a border of eight continuous arcs decorated with alternating symbols, the outer field with a band of whorls between hatchured borders, all below the wide inclined outer rim, with silvery patina and green encrustation
8 1/8 in. (20.6 cm.) diam., Japanese wood box

Provenance

Acquired in the 1980s.

Lot Essay

Two similar mirrors of larger size (27.5 and 25.4 cm.) in the Donald H. Graham Jr. Collection are illustrated by Toru Nakano, Bronze Mirrors from Ancient China, Hong Kong, 1994, pp. 154-57, nos. 48 and 49, where the characters surrounding the knop may be translated, "[If you own this mirror], you and your family will prosper forever". The author relates the whorl motifs to whorl-ground patterns on earlier Warring States and Western Han dynasty mirrors, and notes that these types of mirrors are "the last group to follow the old mirror-making traditions which had existed since the Warring States period".

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