A RARE PAIR OF GOLD FOIL-DECORATED BRONZE HARNESS FITTINGS

WARRING STATES PERIOD, 5TH-4TH CENTURY BC

细节

A RARE PAIR OF GOLD FOIL-DECORATED BRONZE HARNESS FITTINGS
WARRING STATES PERIOD, 5TH-4TH CENTURY BC
Each comprised of a domed bronze ring from which project three posts surmounted by taotie masks covered in gold foil, the outward-facing masks with protruding tongue, small nose, bulbous eyes below small ears and curved horns, with areas of beaded detailing, with malachite green and azurite encrustation
2 in. (5 cm.) across
Wt. 87.1 and 88.8 g. (2)

来源

Alice Boney, New York, 1953.

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拍品专文

Compare the similar harness fitting, illustrated by B. Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, pp. 64-5, no. 3, later sold at Sotheby's, London, 14 May 2008, lot 12. A similar fitting was excavated from a large pit filled with the remains of chariots and horses at a Warring States site at Fengxiang Doufu village in Shaanxi province. A pair of fittings of similar type, but with silver masks surmounting each post, excavated 1974-78 from the tomb of King Cuo (r. 327-313 BC), State of Zhongshan, in Lingshou, present-day Pingshan county, Hebei province, is illustrated by Han Wei and Christian Deydier, Ancient Chinese Gold, Paris, 2001, p. 53, no. 86.

Stylistically the masks are similar to late Spring and Autumn period (5th-4th century BC) masks cast at the Houma foundry in southern Shanxi province, as evidenced by molds excavated at the foundry site, 1957-1965. Such a mold is illustrated in Art of the Houma Foundry, Institute of Archaeology of Shanxi Province, Princeton, New Jersey, 1996, p. 168, no. 180.

A Technical Examination Report is available upon request.