Page 90 - 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 RARE PAIR OF PARCEL-GILT SILVER HAIRPINS
TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)
The gilded head of each double-pronged silver hairpin has a delicate, The opulence of the Tang court is refected not only in the use of gold
chased openwork design depicting a pair of mandarin ducks in fight and silver for the manufacture of vessels, but also for the decoration of
amidst scrolling tendrils that also enclose a lotus leaf and fowers, everyday objects and personal adornment. For the ladies of the court
all issuing from the jaws of a dragon head. this included rich jewelry such as necklaces, earrings and bracelets, as
well as combs and hairpins that adorned their hair styles, which became
Each 11 in. (28 cm.) long, leather box; weight 17 and 17.6 g (2)
more elaborate as the dynasty progressed. Later in the Tang period the
$40,000-60,000 ends of the hairpins were often made from thin sheet silver with cut-out
designs that made them light in weight and, along with the addition of
gilding, made the hairpins shimmer and quiver as the woman moved.
PROVENANCE
Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953,
The present hairpins are very similar to one dated Tang dynasty, late 8th-
no. CK126.
9th century, in the collection of the Art Museum, Princeton University,
Sotheby’s London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork.
and illustrated by Clarence W. Kelley, Chinese Gold & Silver in American
Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 52.
Collections, The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio, 1984, p. 39, no. 5.
EXHIBITED (Fig. 1) Other similar hairpins include one originally in the collection of
Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold & Silver in the the Hon. Senator Hugh Scott and now in the collection of Pierre Uldry,
Carl Kempe Collection, 1954-55, cat. no. 126. illustrated in Chinesishes Gold und Silber, Zurich, 1994, p. 205, no. 219,
New York, Asia House Gallery, Chinese Gold, Silver and Porcelain. The and the example illustrated by Han Wei and Christian Deydier, Ancient
Kempe Collection, 1971, cat. no. 63, an exhibition touring the United Chinese Gold, Paris, 2001, p. 134, pl. 331. A related gilt-silver hairpin in
States and shown also at nine other museums. the Royal Ontario Museum is illustrated in Homage to Heaven, Homage
to Earth, Toronto, 1992, p. 223, pl. 127 (bottom). All of these hairpins
LITERATURE
include a pair of confronted mandarin ducks, an appropriate motif for
Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection,
a lady of the court as mandarin ducks symbolize connubial bliss and
Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 126.
fdelity. Two further openwork, gilded silver hairpins in the Royal Ontario
Bo Gyllensvärd, ‘T’ang Gold and Silver’, Bulletin of the Museum of Far
Museum, also illustrated pl. 127, have similarly feminine motifs - one of
Eastern Antiquities, No. 29, Stockholm, 1957, pl. 24d, fg. 84b.
knotted cords representing the unbreakable union of marriage, the other
Chinese Gold & Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art
of a phoenix, the symbol of the empress who embodied all
and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 136.
feminine attributes.
唐 銀局部鎏金鏤空鴛鴦蓮紋釵一對

Fig. 1 Hairpin with Mandarin Ducks and Lotuses, late 8th–9th century, beaten silver with gilt finial
28.5 × 5.7 × 0.4 cm (11 1 × 2 1 × 1 in.) Gift of J. Lionberger Davis, Class of 1900
©Princeton University Art Museum

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