AN UNUSUAL BRONZE MASK-FORM FITTING

LATE 6TH/EARLY 5TH CENTURY BC

细节

AN UNUSUAL BRONZE MASK-FORM FITTING
LATE 6TH/EARLY 5TH CENTURY BC
Cast as a monster mask with protruding tongue and bulging eyes below a pair of ornate openwork horns formed by slender, twisting, spiralling dragons biting their own bodies, which have hooked projections and small circular cells for inlay, with an attachment pin projecting from the back, allover malachite encrustation
4 5/16 in. (11 cm.) long, box

来源

Acquired in Hong Kong, 1998.

展览

Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 2002-2006.

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拍品专文

This unusual fitting is a handle from a vessel, and would have been cast using the lost wax process. Similar handles can be seen on a bronze zhan excavated from a mid-sixth century Chu tomb (M1) at Henan Xichuan Xiasi, illustrated by J. So, Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, p. 121, fig. 10.4, where a close-up of one of the handles shows a similar monster face and the intricate layered interweaving of the horns, similar to that of the present handle.