NORTH CHINA, 1ST-2ND CENTURY AD

Details

A RARE BRONZE THREE-PART HORSE BIT
NORTH CHINA, 1ST-2ND CENTURY AD
The assemblage consists of two delicate cheek-pieces of S-shape executed in elegant scrolled openwork with hooked, trefoil motifs on the outer edges, the two joined by the three-part linked bit. Together with four bronze 'wolf' plaques, South Central Inner Mongolia, 5th century BC, each depicts a wolf devouring prey, two shown standing and two shown crouching, and all with encrustation.
5 1/8 in. (13 cm.) long

Provenance

Horse bit: Dr. Ping Yiu Tam Collection, Hong Kong.
J. J. Lally & Co., New York, 1993.
Standing wolf plaques: The Erwin Harris Collection, Miami, Florida, by 1982.
Crouching wolf plaques: Edgar and Hedwig Worch Collection; Christie’s New York, 2 June 1994, lot 44 (part).
All: The Erwin Harris Collection, Miami, Florida.

Literature

Horse bit: J. Rawson and E. Bunker, Ancient Chinese and Ordos Bronzes, Oriental Ceramic Society, Hong Kong, 1990, no. 233.
J. F. So and E. C. Bunker, Traders and Raiders on China's Northern Frontier, Washington D.C., Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 1995, pp. 158-59, no. 81.

Lot Essay

The horse bit is identical to a set of four bits of 2nd century BC date recovered in Huayin Xian, Shaanxi province. Other similar examples have been published: one from the Oppenheim Collection illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Ausstellung Chinesischer Kunst, Berlin, 1929, p. 175, no. 428; one illustrated by W. Perceval Yetts, The Eumorfopoulos Collection, vol. II, London, 1930, pl. LII B203; and another illustrated in Collection of Chinese and Other Far Eastern Art, Yamanaka & Company, Inc., New York, 1943, no. 126.

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