SPRING AND AUTUMN PERIOD, 7TH-EARLY 6TH CENTURY BC

Details

A RARE TURQUOISE-INLAID GOLD RAM-FORM FITTING
SPRING AND AUTUMN PERIOD, 7TH-EARLY 6TH CENTURY BC
The finely chased fitting is shaped as a recumbent ram, its head turned to the side. There are multiple cloisons that highlight areas of the body, some with turquoise inlay. Two posts or rivets project from the back.
1 ½ in. (3.8 cm.) wide; weight 61.4 g

Provenance

George Eumorfopoulos (1863-1939) Collection.
Sotheby's London, 28 May 1940, lot 504.
Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, no. CK21.
Sotheby's London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 6.

Literature

Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 21.
Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 16.

Exhibited

Copenhagen, Dansk Kunstindustrimuseum, Kinas Kunst i Svensk og Dansk eje, 1950, cat. no. 164.
Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, 1954-55, cat. no. 21.

Lot Essay

This rare gold fitting is similar to two that were excavated along with other gold objects in 1982 at a seventh-sixth century BC site in Majiazhuang, Fengxiang county, Shaanxi province, which are illustrated by Yang Junchang, Paul Jett and Chen Jianli, Gold in Ancient China: 2000-200 BCE, Beijing, 2017, p. 108, figs. 3-6 d, and are described, p. 107, as having two rivets on the back (Fig. 1); and by Han Wei and Christian Deydier, Ancient Chinese Gold, Paris, 2001, p. 37, pl. 39, where the authors note that they were excavated from "chariot graves", and identify them as harness fittings. None of the illustrated fittings have turquoise inlay, but there do appear to be recesses which could have held inlay.

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