10TH-13TH CENTURY OR LATER

Details

A PAIR OF GOLD FILIGREE HAIRPINS
10TH-13TH CENTURY OR LATER
The ornate head of each double-pronged hairpin is comprised of a very fine sheet of delicate latticework decorated with a small bird with a leafy spray in its beak below a scrolling meander, all outlined in fine twisted wire and enclosed within a geometric border.
Each 7 ½ in. (19 cm.) long; weight 35.8 and 34.3 g

Provenance

Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, no. CK45.
Sotheby's London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 91.

Literature

Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 45.
Bo Gyllensvärd, ‘T’ang Gold and Silver’, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, No. 29, Stockholm, 1957, figs. 13h, 53a, 77b.
Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 44.

Exhibited

Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, 1954-55, cat. no. 45.
New York, Asia House Gallery, Chinese Gold, Silver and Porcelain. The Kempe Collection, 1971, cat. no. 20, an exhibition touring the United States and shown also at nine other museums.

Lot Essay

A related gold hairpin, also decorated with an area of filigree openwork in the head of the hairpin, is illustrated in Celestial Creations: Art of the Chinese Goldsmith, The Cheng Xun Tang Collection, vol. I, Art Museum, Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007, no. C04. See, also, the example illustrated by Simon Kwan and Sun Ji, Chinese Gold Ornaments, Hong Kong, 2003, pp. 346-47, pl. 197. Both of these hairpins are dated to the Tang dynasty.

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