Page 51 - March 16, 2017 Chinese Art, The Harris Collection, Christies

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A RARE BRONZE THREE-PART HORSE BIT
NORTH CHINA, 1ST-2ND CENTURY AD
The assemblage consists of two delicate cheek-pieces of S-shape executed in elegant scrolled
openwork with hooked, trefoil motifs on the outer edges, the two joined by the three-part
linked bit.
5¿ in. (13 cm.) long
$4,000-6,000

PROVENANCE

Dr. Ping Yiu Tam Collection, Hong Kong.
J. J. Lally & Co., New York, 1993.
The Erwin Harris Collection, Miami, Florida.

LITERATURE

J. Rawson and E. Bunker, Ancient Chinese and Ordos Bronzes, Oriental Ceramic Society, Hong
Kong, 1990, no. 233.
J. F. So and E. C. Bunker, Traders and Raiders on China’s Northern Frontier, Washington D.C.,
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 1995, pp. 158-59, no. 81.
A set of four identical bits of 2nd century BC date was recovered in Huayin Xian, Shaanxi
province. Other similar examples have been published: one from the Oppenheim Collection
illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, Ausstellung Chinesischer Kunst, Berlin, 1929, p. 175,
no. 428; one illustrated by W. Perceval Yetts, The Eumorfopoulos Collection, vol. II, London,
1930, pl. LII B203; and another illustrated in Collection of Chinese and Other Far Eastern Art,
Yamanaka & Company, Inc., New York, 1943, no. 126.

公元一至二世紀 青銅卷雲紋馬勒

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