Page 153 - 2020 Sept Important Chinese Art Sotheby's NYC Asia Week

9/2/2020 Important Chinese Art | Sotheby's

Catalogue Note
The present lot belongs to a small group of bronze mirrors cast with the same design of flower roundels and inscribed with various
poems in the four-character pianwen style. See, for examples, a closely related mirror, but of a larger size and inscribed with a
different poem, in the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, exhibited in Ancient Bronze Mirrors from the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai
Museum, Shanghai, 2005, cat. no. 71(fig. 1); and another published in Shen Congwen, ed., Tang Song tongjing [Bronze mirrors
from the Tang and Song dynasties], Beijing, 1958, pl. 9. Compare also a very similar mirror, but with a chevron border around the
rim, from the Carter Collection, included in the exhibition Circles of Reflection. The Carter Collection of Chinese Bronze Mirrors,
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, 2000, cat. no. 57; and another exhibited in Bronze Mirrors from Sui to Tang Dynasty,
Uragami Sokyu-do, Tokyo, 2010, cat. no. 5; the third with a ‘classic scroll’ border, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, exhibited
in Special Exhibition of Bronze Mirrors in the National Palace Museum, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1986, pl. 67. For auctioned
examples, see one sold in these rooms, 31st March-1st April 2005, lot 172; another formerly in the collections of A.W. Bahr and
Robert H. Ellsworth, sold at Christie’s New York, 22nd March 2012, lot 1439; and the third cast with a poem in seal script, from the
collection of Raymond A. Bidwell and the Springfield Museums, Springfield, sold at Christie’s New York, 21st-22nd March 2013, lot
1149.

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