TWO BRONZE OCTALOBED MIRRORS

TANG DYNASTY (618-907)

Details

TWO BRONZE OCTALOBED MIRRORS
TANG DYNASTY (618-907)
One has a loop in the shape of a tortoise resting on a lotus leaf borne on a stem that rises amidst rocks from a pond. To one side a phoenix dances atop a rock to the music played on the qin by a scholar seated to the other side, while a stork is seen in flight above. The knob on the other mirror is flanked by two phoenixes with knotted belt ties (shou) trailing from their beaks as they stand atop lotus stems. A shou also trails from the beak of one of the pair of ducks below and another is suspended between a pair of birds in flight above. Flower stems alternate with insects in the lobes of the outer field hovering above a flower bud.
Both 6 3/8 in. (16.2 cm.) across (2)

Provenance

Raymond A. Bidwell (1876-1954) Collection.
The Springfield Museums, Springfield, Massachusetts, accessioned in 1962.

Literature

First mirror: Springfield Daily News, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1969, p. 15.

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Lot Essay

The first mirror is very similar to one illustrated by T. Nakano, Bronze Mirrors from Ancient China: Donald H. Graham Jr. Collection, 1994, pp. 258-9, no. 99.
The imagery on the second mirror is similar to that of two octafoil mirrors: one illustrated in Ancient Bronze Mirrors from the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, 2005, pp. 224-25, no. 74, and the other, also illustrated by Ju-hsi Chou, Circles of Reflection: The Carter Collectino of Chinese Bronze Mirrors, The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000, p. 75, no. 68. The motifs on these and the present mirror would have made them an appropriate wedding gift to be kept in a woman's boudoir.

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