Page 80 - Sotheby's Junkunc Collection March 2019

triking for its powerful dynamism and slender elegance, this striding dragon embodies the
majesty and virility entirely commensurate with its role in Chinese cosmology, and belongs to
Sa small number of free-standing sculptures of type produced during the Six Dynasties period.

The dragon, beyond its well-documented associations with the heavens and as a symbol of the emperor,
also represented one of the four cardinal directions: the Green Dragon of the East, cosmologically linked
to the Black Warrior of the North, the White Tiger of the West and the Red Bird of the South. Together
these four animals were regarded as rulers of the seasons and the quadrants, and appeared together
from the Western Han dynasty, where they frequently adorned bronze mirrors and tomb decor.

The lithe and sinewy body frozen in suspended movement so remarkable on this dragon can be
compared to a number of stone carvings dating to the Six Dynasties. The epitaph cover of the Northern
Wei official Yuan Hui (d. 520 AD), discovered in Luoyang, Henan province in 1926 and today housed
in the Forest of Steles, Xi’an, is carved with very similar dragons framing the inscriptions, illustrated in
Yasushi Nishikawa, Seian hirin, Tokyo, 1966, pls 120-125. Similarly, a set of stamped clay tiles discovered
in a Southern Dynasties tomb near Dengxian, Henan province, also adorned with the four directional
animals, features stylistically similar dragons, see Annette L. Juliano, ‘Teng-Hsien: An Important Six
Dynasties Tomb’, Artibus Asiae, Supplementum XXXVII, 1980, fig. 22.

鎏金走龍身形修長舒展，如行雲流水，四肢壯碩剛 此龍體態輕盈矯捷，極富張力，可比1926年河南洛
勁，勾爪居牙，頓覺精神抖擻、活力四射；龍，於中 陽北魏元徽墓出土墓誌蓋上所刻龍紋邊框，造型與本
國傳統認知體系，乃正氣浩然、至大至剛之神物，與 例頗為相仿，此碑現存西安碑林博物館，圖載於西川
本品所呈雄健氣概完美契合；此類六朝走龍擺件量罕 寧，《中國碑林》，東京，1966年，圖版120-125
質精，如今存世稀珍，甚為難得。 。再比河南鄧縣南朝墓葬出土之畫像磚，上飾四方靈
獸，龍紋風格與此亦是極為雷同，圖錄於朱安耐，〈
自有載以來，龍便為神獸，又言「真龍天子」，素為
鄧縣：一座六朝時代的重要墓葬〉，《 亞洲藝術》
皇帝象徵；中國神話更視青龍與白虎、朱雀、玄武四
，附錄XXXVII，1980年，圖22。
靈獸為四象，各鎮東、西、南、北一方，分掌四季，
以保福泰永年。西漢伊始，頻見此四神獸同飾於銅鏡
及墓葬陳設。

Fig. 1 A pair of gilt-bronze striding dragons given by Grenville L. Winthrop to the Harvard Art Museums, obj. no. 1943.52.74A, B
© President and Fellows of Harvard College
圖一 銅鎏金龍一對，由 Grenville L. Winthrop 贈予哈佛藝術博物館，館藏編號1943.52.74A及B
© President and Fellows of Harvard College

78 JUNKUNC: ARTS OF ANCIENT CHINA