Lot 229
  • 229

A VERY RARE ARCHAIC BRONZE LINCHPINWESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY |

Estimate
15,000 - 20,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Height 4 1/8  in., 10.5 cm
naturalistically cast in the form of a rhinoceros head rendered with pricked ears, almond-shaped eyes, and two protruding horns, pierced through with an aperture behind and set against a crescent-shaped back, all above a flattened pierced shaft, the surface with malachite and cuprite encrustation, wood stand (2)

Provenance

Collection of Stephen Junkunc, III (d. 1978).

Catalogue Note

Bronze linchpins made in the form of a rhinoceros head are very rare. See a pair of nearly identical linchpins in the collection Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo, illustrated together with their axle caps in Ancient Chinese Arts in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1989, pl. 99, together with a few other examples of different animal forms, such as boar, elephant, and tiger, pls 91-93; one in the British Museum, London, illustrated in William Watson, Handbook of the Collections of Early Chinese Antiquities, London, 1962, pl. 36; and another, modeled with a single horn, published in Orvar Karlbeck, 'Notes on Some Chinese Wheel Axle-Caps', Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, no. 39, Stockholm, 1967, pl. 16, fig. E.