Page 21 - Bonhams Chinese Works of Art December 2014

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A bronze garlic-head vase A gold and silver damascened iron ewer, duomuhu
Han dynasty China or Tibet, 15th-17th century
The compressed globular body surmounted by a waisted neck Of cylindrical form with a curving spout and a scalloped gallery rising
with a raised band at the center and a garlic-head top, the whole at the top above a faceted loop handle, the iron bands applied to
raised on a straight foot with a loop at the center of the underside, the walls displaying a cash-pattern highlighted in gilt and the areas in
containing mineral encrustations throughout the exterior of green, between stamped with silver leaf curls surrounding images of the Eight
maroon and gold hues. Buddhist Emblems above stylized shou- medallions.
14 1/2in (36.9cm) high 11 1/4in (28.5cm) high
$4,000 - 6,000 $10,000 - 15,000

Provenance The distinctive scalloped gallery above the handle on this ewer appears
acquired in 1993 at Michael Goedhuis, London in a group of porcelain ewers, described as in the shape of a Tibetan
monk’s cap such as early 15th century white glazed example with
anhua decoration in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: see Suzanne G.
Valenstein, The Herzman Collection of Chinese Ceramics, 1992, cat.
no. 58, p. 64. Another example, in cloisonné enamel, also from the
Ming dynasty and preserved in the Tibet Museum, Lhasa, is illustrated
in Beatrice Quette (ed), Cloisonné: Chinese Enamels from the Yuan,
Ming, and Qing Dynasties, 2011, Fig.4.8, p. 68. However examples
of the duomuhu from the Qing period have a scalloped gallery rising
above the spout at the front of the vessel: see the Kangxi period
ewer from the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, Springfield,
Massachusetts, also illustrated in Quette, Cloisonné, p. 104.

For a globular iron jar with silver inlay and bearing a Wanli reign mark in
the Victoria & Albert Museum, see Rose Kerr, Later Chinese Bronzes,
1990, cat. no. 44, p. 55. Ms. Kerr mentions the applied plates
suggest an armorer’s work. In fact, the delicate tracery on this ewer
finds a counterpart in two iron helmets discussed by Donald laRocca
in Warriors of the Himalayas: Rediscovering the Arms and Armor
of Tibet, 2006: cat. no. 11 - a multi-plate helmet of 42 lames in the
Leeds Museum collection, as possibly Tibetan, Mongolian, or Chinese,
15th century, pp. 73-74; and cat. no. 12 - a multi-plate helmet of 32
lames in the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, as Mongolian or
Tibetan, possibly 14th-16th century, pp. 74-76.

FINE Chinese Works of Art | 19