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
Two gilt-bronze 'dragon' supports, Eastern Han or later | 東漢或以後 鎏金銅坐龍承足兩件
Auction Closed
October 9, 07:30 AM GMT
Estimate
80,000 - 120,000 HKD
Lot Details
Description
Two gilt-bronze 'dragon' supports,
Eastern Han or later
東漢或以後 鎏金銅坐龍承足兩件
each dragon depicted half-kneeling with the tail wrapped up in front, its head turned to the left, modelled with a single horn and large circular eyes below long bushy brows, the body detailed with groups of small circles and striations, its right arm held upwards and the upper half of its back cut away, suggesting its function as a support for a vessel
h. 4.6 cm
Eskenazi Ltd, London, 6th February 1989.
埃斯卡納齊，倫敦，1989年2月6日
Jessica Rawson and Emma C. Bunker, Ancient Chinese and Ordos Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1990, cat. no. 118.
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118
Animal-form supports of this type were made as legs for vessels such as lian, zun or pan; for example, a Han dynasty gilt-bronze lian with crouching bear feet in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, accession no. S1987.341a-b.
An identical example, also naturalistically modelled as a kneeling dragon, is included in the exhibition catalogue Oriental Works of Art. Shogado 70 years, Kyoto, 1989, p. 38 bottom. For other gilt-bronze animal-form supports, see a 'bear' example in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard Art Museums, accession no. 1943.53.92; and two sets of four bird-shaped vessel legs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession nos 49.137.1-8, presumably made to support lacquerware which perished with time.