Page 190 - 2019 September 10th Sotheby's Important Chinese Art Jades, Met Museum Irving Collection NYC

126 A SILVERED BRONZE ‘BEAST’
INSCRIBED MIRROR
㜙 戭 EASTERN HAN DYNASTY, DATED TO
㻊 挷 THE THIRD YEAR OF ZHONGPING,
ᷕ 戨 CORRESPONDING TO 186 AD
⸛ 䐆
ᶱ 䌠 cast with concentric circles centering a pierced domed knop, the Han dynasty mirrors with dated inscriptions are extremely rare,
⸜ġġġ 䲳 innermost band with four prowling winged felines each shown in and ones dated to the Zhongping reign are rarer still. A second
掉 proÞ le in high relief and divided by raised squares each enclosing mirror, belonging to the Shanghai collector Li Guosong, also
four characters, the following band with twelve raised squares bears an inscription dated to the third year of the Zhongping
each enclosing one character and interspersed with twelve reign and is described by Sueji Umehara in Kan sangoku Rikuchō
semicircles cast with whorl-patterns, all bordered by a band of kinenkyō zusetsu [An Illustrated Discourse on Dated Mirrors of
darts, the rim with a 59-character inscription dated to Zhongping the Han, Three Kingdoms, and Six Dynasties Periods], Kyoto,
sannian (Zhongping third year), and including a dedication citing 1943, p. 30. A mirror formerly in the Moriya Collection, with a
the King Father of the East and the Queen Mother of the West, all very similar design to the present example, and dated to the
enclosed by a band of brocade pattern, the mirror face slightly sixth year of the Zhongping reign is also published in ibid.,
convex pl. 15.1, and was later reproduced in Anneliese Bulling, ‘The
Decoration of Mirrors of the Han Period: A Chronology’, Artibus
Asiae, Supplementum XX, 1960, cover and pl. 65.
Diameter 5⅝ in., 14.3 cm
$ 8,000-12,000
PROVENANCE Ը๕
Spink & Son, London, 4th September 1987. ŔűŪůŬġħġŔŰů炻ΐ㔎炻IJĺĹĸ⸜ĺ㚰ĵ㖍
Collection of Florence (1920-2018) and Herbert (1917-2016) ἃ伭ΐ㕗ġĩIJĺijıĮijıIJĹĪġ⍲崓ỗ䈡ġĩIJĺIJĸĮijıIJķĪɀ
Irving, no. 1890.
㫸暚ằ⃟㓞啷炻䶐嘇IJĹĺı

188 SOTHEBY’S