HOTUNG | 何東 The Personal Collection of the late Sir Joseph Hotung: Part 1 | Day
HOTUNG | 何東 The Personal Collection of the late Sir Joseph Hotung: Part 1 | Day
A silver-inlaid bronze 'tiger head' ornament, Eastern Zhou dynasty, Warring States period | 東周戰國時期 銅錯銀虎首飾件
Auction Closed
October 9, 07:30 AM GMT
Estimate
300,000 - 500,000 HKD
Lot Details
Description
A silver-inlaid bronze 'tiger head' ornament,
Eastern Zhou dynasty, Warring States period
東周戰國時期 銅錯銀虎首飾件
well modelled in the form of a feline head with fine lines of silver inlay defining the details, the broad snout with a wide open mouth leading to a hollow interior and open at the back, the pair of almond-shaped eyes surmounted by bushy brows and large rounded ears
4.8 by 4.7 by h. 2.5 cm
Eskenazi Ltd, London, 15th August 1988.
埃斯卡納齊，倫敦，1988年8月15日
Jessica Rawson and Emma C. Bunker, Ancient Chinese and Ordos Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1990, cat. no. 104.
羅森及愛瑪．賓格，《青銅聚英：中國古代與鄂爾多斯青銅器》，香港，1990年，編號104
Bronze animal head-form fittings of this type were probably used as chariot ornaments, as evidenced by two similar parcel-gilt bronze examples discovered inside the carriage remnants of a chariot from the tomb of the Prince of Qi of the Western Han dynasty in Linzi, Shandong province, published in Zibo Museum, 'Xihan Qiwangmu suizangqiwukeng [The Funerary Pits round the Princely Tomb of Qi Kingdom of the Western Han Dynasty]', Kaogu xuebao/Acta Archaeologica Sinica, vol. 2, Beijing, 1985, fig. 23-3. Thomas Lawton, on the other hand, suggested that it could have been the top part of a tripod stand; see Chinese Art of the Warring States Period, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1983, cat. no. 27.
For other ornaments of the same type, see an example inscribed to the underside with two characters reading zuozheng, in the Museum of East Asian Art, Cologne, included in the exhibition Unearthing China's Past, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1973, cat. no. 16; another exhibited in Chinese Archaic Bronzes, Sculpture and Works of Art, J.J. Lally & Co., New York, 1992, cat. no. 31; and an undecorated example, attributed to the Han dynasty, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession no. 18.43.1.