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Lot Essay
This spectacular and powerfully depicted gilt-bronze striding dragon is similar to one of Tang date of slightly larger size (18 cm. long) unearthed in 1979 from the site of Daming Palace in Xian City and now in the Xian Museum. See C. Michaelson, Gilded Dragons, London, 1999, p. 92, no. 53. (Fig. 1) In her discussion of another related Tang gilt-bronze dragon, but shown in a descending posture, unearthed in 1975 in Caochangpo, Xian, Shaanxi province, Michaelson notes, pp. 91-92, “This dragon embodies a virility and majesty which is entirely commensurate with its place in Chinese cosmology,” and that it likely served as a guardian figure as representations of dragons are traditionally buried in foundations of buildings to ward off evil spirts. The author further notes, “The Chinese dragon gradually became an insignia of royalty and dominion. It came to represent the emperor, the son of heaven…The dragon is also seen as a male symbol, one of vigour and fertility and therefore yang, as opposed to the female yin. It is the fifth creature in the Chinese zodiac and represents the East, the region of sunrise, of fertility, of spring rains. It is therefore a force for good.”
A gilt-bronze dragon of smaller size (10.3 cm. long) with similarly rendered scales, but shown in a leaping posture, is in the Minneapolis Museum of Art, gift of Ruth and Bruce Dayton, acc. no. 98.173, where it is dated to the 9th century (https://collections.artsmia.org/art/12028/dragon-china). The curator notes that small bronze dragons of this type were likely made for the ritual tou longjian (tossing dragons and tallies). The Tang Emperor Xuanzong was a fervent Daoist and dispatched envoys each year to perform this ritual, where these dragons were thrown into holy sites along with prayers, in order to communicate with gods.
A pair of gilt-bronze dragons dating to the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) which are also shown striding, but lack the scales seen on the current figure and have a more robust build, is in the Harvard Art Museums and illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, Cambridge, 1969, no. 54. A further Han-dynasty example is in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and illustrated in R. E. Taggart ed., Handbook of the Collection in William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, 1959, p. 176 (bottom right). See, also, another gilt-bronze dragon of this earlier type sold in the sale Junkunc: Arts of Ancient China, Sotheby’s New York; 19 March 2019, where it was dated to the Six Dynasties period (AD 220-589).
A gilt-bronze dragon of smaller size (10.3 cm. long) with similarly rendered scales, but shown in a leaping posture, is in the Minneapolis Museum of Art, gift of Ruth and Bruce Dayton, acc. no. 98.173, where it is dated to the 9th century (https://collections.artsmia.org/art/12028/dragon-china). The curator notes that small bronze dragons of this type were likely made for the ritual tou longjian (tossing dragons and tallies). The Tang Emperor Xuanzong was a fervent Daoist and dispatched envoys each year to perform this ritual, where these dragons were thrown into holy sites along with prayers, in order to communicate with gods.
A pair of gilt-bronze dragons dating to the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) which are also shown striding, but lack the scales seen on the current figure and have a more robust build, is in the Harvard Art Museums and illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, Cambridge, 1969, no. 54. A further Han-dynasty example is in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and illustrated in R. E. Taggart ed., Handbook of the Collection in William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, 1959, p. 176 (bottom right). See, also, another gilt-bronze dragon of this earlier type sold in the sale Junkunc: Arts of Ancient China, Sotheby’s New York; 19 March 2019, where it was dated to the Six Dynasties period (AD 220-589).