Page 27 - Bonhams Chinese Art September 2015 NY

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A gilt-BronzE figurE of A mythiCAl BEAst A sino-tiBEtAn CErEmoniAl hEAdBAnd
Tang Dynasty or earlier 19th or 20th Century
The creature cast sitting on its hindquarters with the slender forelegs Each of the five parts designed with a small painted Buddha
placed firmly apart, the leonine head raised up on a long elegant neck, surrounded by a leaf-shaped mandala in white metal filigree; framed
crowned with curving horns and a short mane, the tail curled up its and glazed Overall dimensions of frame: 69 x 38cm (27 x 15in)
back, traces of gilt.
7cm (2 3/4in) high £500 - 1,000
CNY4,800 - 9,600 HK$6,000 - 12,000
£800 - 1,200
CNY7,700 - 12,000 HK$9,600 - 14,000 For a similar ritual diadem attributed to early/mid Qing China, also
with five Buddhas, see by P. Pal, Desire and Devotion, London 2001,
Provenance p.318. This type of tiara (Tibetan: rig-na) is of particular significance
Purchased from Finch & Co. in 2003 for a Vajracharya priest to wear during the observance of abhisheka.
The five deities represented here are probably Amitabha, Vairochana,
Compare the modelling of the present lot with a puddingstone lion, 8th Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava and Amoghasiddhi. Pal concludes that:
century, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection no. 24.74 ‘The form and design can be traced back at least to thirteenth-century
Tibet, or earlier still....The foliate shape of the top of the panels was
60 probably introduced in China in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries’.
A BronzE ‘hound’ sCroll wEight
The recumbent hound modelled with its fanged muzzle held up in an alert
position, a curly mane down its neck, its forepaws crossed, the spine
defined with circular bosses, the bushy tail coiled round the hindquarters.
7.4cm (2 7/8in) wide

£600 - 800
CNY5,800 - 7,700 HK$7,200 - 9,600

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