Page 19 - Bonhams May 12 16 London

7 The tiger is one of the oldest and most revered animals in Chinese
A RARE SILVER-AND-GILT BRONZE ‘TIGER’ WEIGHT history. According to Han mythology, the tiger symbolised the Western
Han Dynasty cardinal point, and in conjunction with the Green Dragon of the West,
The recumbent feline elegantly cast in a tightly coiled pose, with Vermillion Bird of the South and Black Tortoise of the North, positioned
almond eyes and curled ears framed by a small bushy mane, its head the burial within the spatial-temporal features of the universe. It is
overlooking its rump, the details finely incised, the body inlaid with possible that tigers were deemed to protect the tomb occupant
silver stripes. against the malign influences they may encounter in their afterlife.
6.7cm (2 5/8in) wide

£8,000 - 12,000 CNY73,000 - 110,000 See related excavated examples of bronze recumbent tiger
HK$88,000 - 130,000 paperweights, in the Shenmu County Museum, illustrated in Bronzes
from Northern Shaanxi, Vol.V, Chengdu, 2009, p.964-966. Two tiger-
漢 銅鎏金銀伏虎鎮 shaped weights were also exhibited in the Biennale Des Antiquaries,
illustrated by C. Deydier, Ancient Chinese Bronzes, Paris, 2014, p.49.

Provenance: Robert Hatfield Ellsworth (1929-2014), no.GB126
Sotheby’s New York, The Robert Hatfield Ellsworth Collection: Chinese
Archaic & Gilt Bronzes, 19 March 2002, lot 116

來源： 安思遠先生(1929-2014)舊藏，藏品編號GB126
2002年3月19日於紐約蘇富比「The Robert Hatfield Ellsworth
Collection: Chinese Archaic & Gilt Bronzes(安思遠珍藏中國高古及鎏金
銅器)」專場拍賣，拍品116號

FINE CHINESE ART | 17