Two Reticulated Bronze Fittings
Warring States period (475-221 BC)
One a slightly domed disk cast in openwork with a tangle of intertwined snake-like dragons within a ring cast in relief with four small masks with projecting loops, three suspending a loose ring; the other a hollow fitting of waisted square outline formed by two tubes finely cast on top with dissolved dragons, with a loop at one end and a rectangular aperture on the reverse, with two loose bronze rings
4¼ and 1¼in. (10.9 and 3.2cm.) across, boxes
Domed disk: Falk Collection no. 544. (2)
Provenance
Domed disk: Otto Kümmel Collection, Berlin.
H.F.E. Visser Collection, Amsterdam.
S.H. Minkenhof Collection, Paris, no. 246.
J.J. Klejman, New York, 1957.
Literature
Domed disk: O. Kümmel, Chinesische Kunst, Zweihundert Hauptwerke der Ausstellung der Gesellschaft für Ostasiatische Kunst, Berlin, 1930, pl. 26.
Both fittings: H.F.E. Visser, Asiatic Art, Amsterdam, Holland, pl. 41, no. 51 (small fitting) and no. 52 (domed disk), p. 42.
Exhibited
Bronze disk: Chinesische Kunst, Berlin, 1929, no. 152. Art of Late Eastern Chou, New York, Chinese Art Society, 1952, no. 34, p. 12. Arts of the Chou Dynasty, Palo Alto, California, Stanford University Museum, 1958, no. 153.
Small bronze fitting: Arts of the Chou Dynasty, Palo Alto, California, Stanford University Museum, 1958, no. 153.
Lot Essay
The design and detailing of the disk are similar to that of a line drawing copied from a Houma foundry mold illustrated by R. Bagley, Art of the Houma Foundry, Princeton University, 1996, p. 181, pl. 226.
More from
THE FALK COLLECTION II: CHINESE AND JAPANESE WORKS OF ART