Page 121 - Sotheby's Asia Week March 2024 Chinee Art

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PROPERTY FROM AN ASIAN PRIVATE COLLECTION 商初 二里頭文化 銅鑲綠松石獸面紋牌
A TURQUOISE-INLAID BRONZE PLAQUE,
EARLY SHANG DYNASTY, ERLITOU CULTURE 來源：
Japanese wood box (3) 1995年得於香港
Height 6½ in., 16.5 cm
PROVENANCE
Acquired in Hong Kong in 1995.
Turquoise-inlaid plaques from the Erlitou period, which is
often identified with the Xia dynasty, are rare and represent
some of the earliest inlaid decorated works of art in Chinese
history. The small group that the present example belongs
to are all intricately decorated with hundreds of pieces of
turquoise in the form of a taotie mask. Here the body is
approximately rectangular, curving inward at the middle.
Plaques such as this were clearly among the most important
pieces selected to accompany the owner to the afterlife, and
have been found on the chests of high status tomb owners.
Two examples excavated at Yanshi County, Henan Province
in 1981 and 1984 are illustrated in Zhongguo wenwu jinghua
dacidian, Shanghai, 1996, p. 4, no. 7, and Gems of China’s
Cultural Relics, Beijing, 1992, pl. 87, respectively. See also
three closely related examples, formerly in the Winthrop
Collection, now in the Harvard Art Museum (accession nos
1943.52.44, 1943.52.45 and 1943.52.46).
The only other Erlitou turquoise-inlaid plaque to appear at
auction, exhibited by Eskenazi, Inlaid Bronze and Related
Material from Pre-Tang China, London, 1991, cat. no. 68, was
sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 3rd June 2015, lot 3201.
⊖ $ 60,000-80,000

238 SOTHEBY’S COMPLETE CATALOGUING AVAILABLE AT SOTHEBYS.COM/N11410 239