NORTH CHINA, 2ND CENTURY BC

Compare the similar pair of gilt-bronze plaques illustrated by E. C. Bunker et al., Nomadic Art of the Eastern Eurasian Steppes, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002, p. 109, no. 79, where the camels are described as flanking an Asian elm tree. As with the present plaques, there are two vertically arranged loops on the reverse of each which bears impressions of a coarse fabric used in the lost wax/lost textile method of manufacture.