Page 221 - Deydier VOL.2 Meiyintang Collection of Chinese Bronses

205. Gilt bronze mat weight
Western Han dynasty, 206 bc. - 9 ad.
西漢時期鎏金獸形鎮
Height: 6 cm, Length: 10 cm

Gilt bronze mat weight cast in the shape of a mythical Provenance:
animal with its back made of a cowrie shell. The gilt ▪ Gisèle Croës, Brussels, Belgium.
bronze animal’s powerfully built body is supported by
four short legs. The beast’s proportionally small head is Exhibited:
finely cast with deeply set, glaring eyes, a powerful feline ▪ Light for the After-Life, selected objects, exhibited at
nose with sharply incised nostrils, long, large, pointed the International Asian Art Fair - New York, Gisèle
ears and a pair of long horns running along its back from
the centre of the top of its head to almost half the length Croës, 2000, catalogue p. 66 - 67.
of its stocky body.
Published:
▪ Croës G., Light for the After-Life, selected objects,
Brussels 2000, catalogue p. 66 - 67.

Similar examples:
▪ Gilt bronze mat weights in the shape of other animals
(deer, turtle, mythical animals) are illustrated by
Wang M.C., Lai G.L, Streckx R., Wang E.Y., A Bronze
Menagerie: Mat Weights of Early China, Boston 2007,
p. 19 no. 2, p. 98 cat. 8, p. 99 fig b and p. 100 fig. c.

Notes:
▪ Such mat weights may have accompanied their owners
both during and after their lives.
▪ Such weights were used to hold down the corners of
a mat.
▪ They seem to have been made in sets of four.

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