Page 28 - March 16, 2017 Chinese Art, The Harris Collection, Christies

816
A BRONZE KNIFE
NORTHEAST CHINA, 8TH-7TH CENTURY BC
The knife has an integrally cast curved blade and an openwork
hilt formed by intertwining serpent bodies. A small oblong loop
with projecting, fat D-shaped tab is at the end of the hilt.
9æ in. (25 cm.) long

$2,000-3,000

PROVENANCE

The Erwin Harris Collection, Miami, Florida, by 1978.

LITERATURE

The Art of the Oriental Bronze Metallurgist: China, Korea, Japan
(1500-1911), Miami, Lowe Art Museum, 1978, no. 29.
J. F. So and E. C. Bunker, Traders and Raiders on China’s Northern
Frontier, Washington D.C., Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 1995,
pp. 122-123, no. 40.
F. Salviati, “Archaeology on China’s Northern Frontier,” Minerva,
July/August 1996, p. 24, fg. 4.

公元前八至七世紀 中國北部 青銅蛇紋刀

817
A PAIR OF BRONZE TIGER-SHAPED ORNAMENTS
CIRCA 5TH-3RD CENTURY BC
Each is cast as a tiger with a partially devoured rabbit dangling
from its jaws, and a rabbit head forms the tip of the tail. The
eye, ear, fanged jaws and paws are delineated by openings and
D-shaped openings in the body refer to the stripes of the hide.
Each has two slender vertical straps for attachment on the
reverse.
4¡ in. (11.1 cm.) wide

(2)

$4,000-6,000

PROVENANCE

J. J. Lally & Co., New York, 18 March 1996.
The Erwin Harris Collection, Miami, Florida.

EXHIBITED

New York, J. J. Lally & Co., Early Dynastic China, 1996, no. 27.

A similar but smaller (2æ in. long) tiger plaque, lacking the
addition of the rabbit, in the University Museum, University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, is illustrated by E. C. Bunker et al.,
“Animal Style” Art from East to West, The Asia Society, New
York, 1970, p. 120, no. 94, where it is dated frst half 5th century
BC. See, also, the example, also lacking the rabbit, illustrated
by A. Salmony, Sino-Siberian Art in the Collection of C. T. Loo,
Paris, 1933, pl. XII (5).

約公元前五至三世紀 青銅虎形飾牌一對

816

26 THE HARRIS COLLECTION:
IMPORTANT EARLY CHINESE ART