AN EXTREMELY RARE GOLD AND SILVER-INLAID BRONZE CORNER FITTING
AN EXTREMELY RARE GOLD AND SILVER-INLAID BRONZE CORNER FITTING

WARRING STATES PERIOD (475-221 BC)

Details
AN EXTREMELY RARE GOLD AND SILVER-INLAID BRONZE CORNER FITTING
WARRING STATES PERIOD (475-221 BC)
The fantastic bear-like creature with large pointed ears shown in a crouching position balanced on a single foot in front and spread tail-like support in back, both arms raised to support an angular corner above, with coiled birds outlining the breasts, dragon scrolls on the shoulders, and further scrolls decorating the remainder of the muscular body, all finely inlaid in gold and silver wire and inlay of varying widths, the greenish-grey patina with some pale blue-green encrustation
5 in. (12.7 cm.) high, wood stand
Provenance
Far Eastern Collection; Christie's, New York, 1 December 1988, lot 147. Acquired in August 1989.
Exhibited
Tokyo, Tokyo National Museum, Exhibition of Eastern Art Celebrating the Opening of the Gallery of Eastern Antiquities, 1968, no. 305.

Lot Essay

Two nearly identical supports are in the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. See The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, New York, 1993, p. 280 (bottom left); and Seiichi Mizuno, Bronzes and Jades of Ancient China, Tokyo, 1959, pl. 14. And another pair from the David Weill Collection and now in the collection of the Musée Guimet is illustrated by C. Delacour, De bronze, d'or et d'argent: Arts somptuaires de la Chine, Paris, 2001, pp. 118-19.
According to Bishop W.C. White, Tombs of Old Lo-yang, Shanghai, 1934, p. 89 and pls. LIII and LIV, eight of these supports, which he identifies as the legs of two low tables, were said to have been found in 1928 in tomb no. 7 of the royal necropolis of the Zhou in Jincun, in the vicinity of Luoyang. While no fragments of the wooden part of any table were preserved, large pieces of thick lacquer laid on a canvas base were discovered, which may have been the original surface of such tables.

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