SPRING AND AUTUMN PERIOD, 6TH-EARLY 5TH CENTURY BC

A virtually identical gold finial in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Richard C. Bull was included in the exhibition, Chinese Art, Venice, 1954, no. 101 (as from Frank Caro, New York, successor to C. T. Loo) and in the exhibition, Early Chinese Gold and Silver, China House Gallery, New York, 1971, no. 7, and was subsequently sold at Sotheby's New York, 6 December 1983, lot 71. Another very similar finial is illustrated with the Kempe finial in Exhibition of Chinese Arts, C. T. Loo & Co., New York, 1941-1942, no. 221, where the two are described as a pair.

The narrow bands of dots that highlight the various features and form the borders of the two bands of scrolls encircling the tubular neck of the Kempe finial appear to be imitating the granulation technique which was introduced into China from the Near East. That type of granulation was created by diffusion bonding tiny gold spheres to the surface. The type of imitation granulation that decorates the present finial can also be seen on two other pieces of Spring and Autumn date (770-475 BC) illustrated by Carol Michaelson, Gilded Dragons: Buried Treasures from China's Golden Ages, British Museum, 1999: one a small gold garment hook with duck-head hook excavated in 1992 at Yimen village, Baoji, Shaanxi province, p. 27, no. 5 (left), the other the turquoise-inlaid gold hilt of an iron sword, p. 31, no. 9, from the same excavation.