Page 33 - 2019 September 12th Christie's New York Chiense Art Masterpieces of Chinese Gold and Silver

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A VERY FINE AND RARE GOLD ‘GOOSE’ GARMENT HOOK
LATE WARRING STATES PERIOD-WESTERN HAN DYNASTY,
3RD-2ND CENTURY BC
The small, heavily cast hook is shaped as a goose with a wide body It is rare to fnd small garment hooks of this type made from gold as they
resting on a round button. The long, curved and slender neck terminates are more often found made of gilt-bronze, such as the pair illustrated
in an elongated beak. by Julia M. White and Emma C. Bunker, Adornment for Eternity, Denver
Art Museum, 1994, p. 119, no. 39, dated Warring States or Western
1¡ in. (3.5 cm.) long; weight 34 g
Han dynasty. Also illustrated, no. 40, is a small bronze example dated
$20,000-30,000 Han dynasty. Each of these is in the shape of a somewhat naturalistic,
long-billed water bird and each of these has a convex button below for
attachment. The authors note that small garment hooks of this type, with
PROVENANCE
the convex attachment button, frst appeared around the beginning of the
Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953,
Warring States period in Shaanxi province. A similar gilt-bronze example
no. CK12.
of comparable size (3.1 cm. long), dated late Warring States-early western
Sotheby’s London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork.
Han, 3rd century BC, is illustrated by Thomas Lawton, Chinese Art of the
Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 21.
Warring States Period, Freer Gallery of Art, 1982, p. 126, no. 74.
EXHIBITED
Two small gold garment hooks, each in the shape of a goose and dated
Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold & Silver in the
to the second century BC, Western Han period, are illustrated by James
Carl Kempe Collection, 1954-55, cat. no. 12.
C. S. Lin ed., The Search for Immortality: Tomb Treasures of Han China,
LITERATURE Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 2012, pls. 73 and 148, the frst excavated
Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, at Beidongshan in 1986, and now in the Xuzhou Museum, Jiangsu
Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 12. province, the other excavated at Xianggangshan in 1983 and now in the
Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art Museum of the King of Nanyue, Guangdong province. Four small gold
and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 12. garment hooks of this type were found in the ffth century tomb of the
Marquis Yi of Zeng at Sui Xian in Hubei province and are illustrated in
Zhongguo meishu quanji, gongyi meishu bian, vol. 10, Beijing, 1987, p. 11,
pl. 19. Like the present example they are plain, but the bird’s head hook is
more like that of a duck and the body is not as compact, nor the hook as
deeply curved as those of the present garment hook.
戰國晚期/西漢 金鵝首形帶鉤

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