Page 62 - 2019 September 12th Christie's New York Chiense Art Masterpieces of Chinese Gold and Silver

MASTERPIECES OF EARLY CHINESE GOLD AND SILVER | 金紫銀青 - 中國早期金銀器粹珍

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A GOLD FOIL-DECORATED IRON MIRROR
LATE EASTERN HAN-EARLY SIX DYNASTIES PERIOD OR LATER
The very thin gold sheet adhered to the circular iron mirror has a cut-out The present iron mirror has a thin gold sheet overlay with a cut-out
design depicting Xiwangmu and Dongwanggong seated on opposite design based on the cast design of Eastern Han (AD 25-220) bronze
sides, each fanked by attendants and separated by two carriages drawn mirrors, represented by two published examples: one excavated from
by fve horses, all within two cut-out saw-tooth bands. The details and a Han-dynasty tomb at Shaoxing in Zhejiang province and now in
outlines are fnely chased. The central knob is also covered by a the Shanghai Museum, illustrated in Ancient Bronze Mirrors from
thin gold sheet. the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, 2005, pp. 190-91, pl. 58; the other
illustrated by Lothar von Falkenhausen, The Lloyd Cotsen Study
7¿ in. (18 cm.) diam., leather box
Collection of Chinese Bronze Mirrors, vol. I, Los Angeles, 2009,
$40,000-60,000 pp. 164-65, pls. 68 and 69.
The design on the bronze prototypes and the present gold and iron
PROVENANCE mirror refects a Daoist infuence found on some mirrors of late Eastern
Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, Han date. On each mirror the design is arranged in quadrants defned by
no. CK32. four nipples within bead circles. In one quadrant is Xiwangmu (Queen
Sotheby’s London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Mother of the West) seated on a lotus, and in the opposite quadrant
Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 34. sits Dongwanggong (Royal Father) on a mat above lotus, both powerful
Daoist deities that represent the western and eastern directions and also
EXHIBITED
yin and yang. They are fanked by attendants. In each of the other two
Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold & Silver in the
quadrants on the Shanghai mirror is a carriage drawn by fve galloping
Carl Kempe Collection, 1954-55, cat. no. 32.
horses, the motif repeated in one quadrant of the Cotsen mirror, while
New York, Asia House Gallery, Chinese Gold, Silver and Porcelain. The
in the opposite quadrant is a row of six horses, four with riders, below a
Kempe Collection, 1971, cat. no.13, an exhibition touring the United States
row of fve horses. On each of these mirrors the main feld of decoration
and shown also at nine other museums.
is encircled by decorative, outer bands, which includes an inscription on
the Cotsen mirror. Another gold foil-decorated iron mirror with similar
LITERATURE cut-out decoration is in the Freer Gallery of Art, reference F1946.7.
Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection,
Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 32. 東漢末/六朝初或以後 貼金箔西王母出巡圖鐵鏡
Bo Gyllensvärd, ‘A Botanical Excursion in the Kempe Collection’, Bulletin
of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, No. 37, Stockholm, 1965, pl. 18b.
Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art
and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 30.

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