A BRONZE TWO-PART BELT BUCKLE WITH TIGER AND RAPTOR

3RD-2ND CENTURY BC

Details

A BRONZE TWO-PART BELT BUCKLE WITH TIGER AND RAPTOR
3RD-2ND CENTURY BC
Both plaques are cast in openwork as a raptor and a tiger attacking each other. The raptor is wildly flapping its wings and tail while biting the neck of the tiger which has the leg of the raptor grasped in its jaws. One plaque has a tab-like hook at one end.
4 ¾ in. (12.1 cm.) wide, box

Provenance

Christie’s London, 10 December 1990, lot 14.
The Erwin Harris Collection, Miami, Florida.

Lot Essay

Compare the similar plaque illustrated by A. Salmony, Sino-Siberian Art in the Collection of C. T. Loo, Paris, 1933, pl. XII (1). See, also, the related belt buckle of two raptors attacking two tigers illustrated by E. C. Bunker et al., Nomadic Art of the Eastern Eurasian Steppes, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2002, pp. 102-103, no. 70, which is also dated 3rd-2nd century BC.

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