Page 44 - Sothebys HK Dragon Emperor April 2024

Combining a delicately carved jade ring, intricate gold
青銅作軸，綴金鑲玉，見證中國早期工藝的出神入
openwork and an inlaid bronze shaft, this piece displays 化。東周時期，隨著失蠟鑄造技術的出現，鑄金飾件
the heights of early Chinese craftsmanship across diverse 窮思極巧。此件金鑄鏤空蟠螭交纏，匯於中心，聚焦
media. With the advent of lost-wax casting techniques, the
Eastern Zhou dynasty saw the rise of incredibly complex 兩目一吻，龍首乍現，在承襲高古獸紋的基礎上，精
cast gold forms. Featuring a tangled profusion of dragons, 益求精。配以雲紋玉環，平衡金鏤蟠螭，相得映彰。
meeting in the middle with two eyes and a snout, the gold
fitting makes a clear nod to archaic zoomorphic motifs while 嵌玉綴金的銅飾極罕，金勝村出土一組飾金玉環，
building on them with new technical prowess. 指乃刀首，見《La Civiltà del Fiume Giallo》，羅
Developing in tandem, Eastern Zhou jade carvers adopted 馬，1992年，編號58。鳳翔縣博物館也有出土例，藏
and adapted fashionable metalworking motifs and 品編號：中1004。另可比較倫敦大英博物館名品匕首
incorporated them into their designs. Bringing balance to 金飾，藏品編號：1937,0416.218。
this piece and mirroring the writhing dragons of the gold
fitting, the jade ring, elliptical in shape, is embellished with
stylised dragons in the form of ‘C’ scrolls with circles for
eyes on a hatched background.
Pieces of this kind combining gold, jade and bronze are
exceedingly rare. A set of similar jade rings with gold fittings
(recorded as knife pommels), found at Jinshengcun, is
illustrated in La Civiltà del Fiume Giallo, Rome, 1992, cat. no.
58. Closely related gold openwork can be found on the hilt
of a bronze knife excavated from Shangguodiancun, now in
the Fengxiang County Museum (accession no. zong-1004),
illustrated in Everlasting Like the Heavens: The Cultures
and Arts of the Zhou, Qin, Han, and Tang, Shanghai, 2019,
p. 221. See also another widely exhibited dagger hilt in the
British Museum (accession no. 1937,0416.218) which Jessica
Rawson compares with contemporaneous jades in Chinese
Jade: From the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, fig. 46.
A closely related pommel, in which a serpentine jade scroll
takes the place of the gold fitting here, was excavated from
the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, among many similar jade
discs and openwork gilt bronze dragons, illustrated in The
Unearthed Cultural Relics From Lei Gu Dun, Sui Zhou, Hu Bei
Province, Hong Kong, 1984, cat. no. 65.
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