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TÊTE DE DRAGON EN MARBRE The dynamism and vigour of this marble head of a dragon
BLANC SCULPTÉ with bulging eyes and rippled skin, is animated and, even
DÉBUT DE LA DYNASTIE MING though visibly worn, conveys a dynamism and vigour that
is characteristic of Yuan and early Ming scultpure. It may
la puissante gueule regardant droit devant, les yeux exorbités have been part of a larger architectural context where it was
sous d’épais sourcils ondulant vers l’arrière, la machoire serrée made to interlock with an ember as the recessed part at the
laissant dépasser des crocs acérés, le front ren é orné de deux opposite end of the head suggests. It is stylistically very close
longues cornes, la crinière formant de petites boucles autour to examples that were made only for buildings associated
du cou, le corps écailleux, socle (2) with the imperial court. Compare with two very similar marble
96 cm, 37¾ in. heads of fabulous beasts that were recovered from the site
of the former Yuan central capital Zhongdu, present-day
A white marble architectural element in the shape of a Zhangbei, Hebei province, and are illustrated in James C. Y.
dragon head, early Ming Dynasty Watt, The World of Khubilai Khan. Chinese Art in the Yuan
Dynasty, New York, 2010, pls. 96 and 99. The same catalogue
30 000-50 000 € illustrates other examples that were discovered in Inner
255 000-424 000 HK$ 32 700-54 500 US$ Mongolia, see ibid., pls. 58, 98 and 103.

As Nancy S. Steinhardt notes, these marble end pieces derive
from a long heritage of dragon head ornaments that were
continued to be used in the architecture of imperial buildings of
the Qing Dynasty, see Nancy S. Steinhardt, ‘The Architecture
of Living and Dying’, in James C. Y. Watt, The World of Khubilai
Khan. Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty, New York, 2010, pp. 65-73.

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