Page 36 - Bonhams Sept 2016 CHINESE Furniture

6015 Provenance
A GILT COPPER ALLOY FUNERARY MASK Sloan’s, September 1998, lot 620.
Liao dynasty
Hammered from a thin copper, tin and silver alloy sheet and realistically On loan and exhibited
modeled with thin, sunken eyes, wide brows setting off a long The Denver Art Museum, 1998 - 2016, (Loan 1999.2).
triangular nose and small mouth accenting the broad cheeks and long
crescent ears, the surface covered with earthen encrustation. Funerary masks such as this lot began to appear in the West in
7 1/4in (18.4cm) high; 8 1/8in (20.7cm) wide the early 20th century. It was Japanese archeologists during the
occupation of Manchuria who identified the group as belonging to the
US$10,000 - 15,000 Khitan tribes that formed the Liao dynasty (907-1125). For a review
of the archeological history of these masks, Liao burial customs, and
遼 銅鎏金面具 a silver-coated bronze mask at the University Museum, Philadelphia,
see Jan Fontein & Tung Wu, Unearthing China’s Past, Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston, 1973, cat. no. 101, pp. 192-194. See also Asia Society
exhibition, Gilded Splendor: Treasures of China’s Liao Empire (907-
1125),, New York, 2006, pp. 100 - 101.

34 | BONHAMS