Chinese Art Online: A Private Asian Collection
Chinese Art Online: A Private Asian Collection
Lot Closed
October 18, 03:48 AM GMT
Estimate
30,000 - 50,000 HKD
Lot Details
Description
A silver-gilt bronze 'ram' zither tuning key,
Eastern Zhou dynasty, Warring States period
東周戰國 銅鎏銀臥羊琴軫鑰
h. 9.1 cm
Laiyantang Collection, Hong Kong, 1990s, by repute.
來源:
傳來燕堂收藏,香港,1990年代
Originally thought to be ornamental fittings, the precise function of the present key remained a mystery until the excavation of a Han dynasty tomb in 1983, where a similar example was discovered together with matching turning pegs (see Jenny So, 'Different Turns, Different Strings: Court and Chamber Music in Ancient China', Orientations, May 2000, p. 31). According to So, because the pegs were small and packed close together on a zither, a tuning key was needed to access them for tuning.
Traditionally, these tuning keys are usually surmounted by animals and mythical beasts. See a closely related example, also surmounted by a ram, excavated in Changzhi, Shanxi province, now in the Shanxi Museum, Taiyuan, illustrated in ibid., fig. 16; another with a feline and snake in combat is in the National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, D.C. (accession no. F1916.454); a third, surmounted by a bear, previously in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Victor Thaw, is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (accession no. 2002.201.150). A line drawing of a closely related example is illustrated in Bo Lawergren, 'The Iconography and Decoration of the Ancient Chinese Qin-Zither (500 BCE to 500 CE)', Music in Art: International Journal for Music Iconography, vol. XXXII, Spring-Fall 2007, pl. 9.
Compare a gilt-copper example, also surmounted by a ram, recently sold in our Now York rooms, 23rd March 2023, lot 633. See also another Warring States period tuning key surmounted by a mythical beast, sold at Christie's New York, 22nd March 2012, lot 1529; and one with two monkeys, sold in the same rooms, 15th September 2010, lot 910.