Page 64 - Bonhams Chinese Paintings and Works of Art Sept 15, 2015

Weights in the Shape of Liubo Game Players. Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). Bronze with lead core.
Greatest height: 3-5/8 in. (9.2 cm); greatest width: 3-1/8 in. (7.9 cm); greatest depth: 3-5/8 in. (9.2 cm).
Purchase, Bequest of Dorothy Graham Bennett, 2003. Accession Number: 2003.522.4
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY

Weights such as the present group would have been used to The game of liubo, 六博 (usually translated ‘six rods’ or ‘six sticks’)
hold down the corners of a mat, or even a liubo game board. It reached the height of its popularity during the Han period, as evidenced
is particularly pleasing for a four-piece set to be preserved intact. by numerous tomb excavations of game players. Both pottery and
Other such sets are now in the collections of important private wooden figures survive, attesting to the pervasive enjoyment of the game
collections and museums, such as a set in the Metropolitan across many strata of society: for example, a pottery pair of figures is now
Museum of Art, New York, museum nos.2003.522.1 to 4, and in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, museum
another group described as ‘chess players’ and illustrated by nos.1992.165.23a, b, and a wooden set from the Gansu Provincial
Wang, Chinese Bronzes from the Meiyintang Collection, London, Museum and exhibited at the Musée Guimet in Paris, is illustrated in
2009, pp. 294-295, no. 149 (which the author compares to a group Splendeurs des Han: Essor de l’Empire Celeste, Paris, 2014, p.24.
excavated from an early Western Han tomb in Lingtai Fujiagou,
Gansu Province in 1974: see Zhongguo qingtongqi quanji, 1996-8, Objects buried in Han tombs reflect the belief that life after death
Vol.XII, no.134). The identical poses in all of these sets are such continued very much as before, and so required the same comforts,
that they appear likely to have been cast from the same mold. tools and indicators of status. The humor and character of weights
such as the present lot and of the larger game players also buried
The figural weights are usually identified as two players and two suggest that the enjoyment of pleasures and leisure time were
spectators: two figures appear to be leaning forward throwing cornerstones of both Han life and the afterlife.
dice with hands outstretched, whilst a third raises his left hand in
excitement and a fourth turns away in dejected despair. Their highly A set of four figural weights, but of a more crude expression and casting,
expressive attitudes and the dramatic interaction within the group are sold at Christie’s New York, The Sze Yuan Tang Archaic Bronzes from the
instantly recognizable, engaging, and typically human. Anthony Hardy Collection, sale 2508, 16 September 2010, lot 893.

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