Lot 242
  • 242

A RARE ARCHAIC BRONZE AXLE CAP AND LINCHPINEARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY |

Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 USD
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Description

  • Length 5 1/2  in., 14.1 cm
the cap of tapering tubular section cast with a band of slender upright petals and pierced with a rectangular aperture to receive the linchpin, the pin cast with a flattened pierced shaft, surmounted by a feline beast head with pricked ears, a flattened nose and a broad muzzle open to reveal its teeth, pierced through with an aperture behind and set against a semicircle-shaped back, the surface with malachite encrustation, wood stand (3)

Provenance

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

Catalogue Note

See a pair of closely related axle caps, similarly cast around the exterior with the slender upright petals, together with their linchpins modeled with boar heads, discovered from a Western Zhou dynasty chariot pit in Jiaoxian, Shandong province, illustrated in CPAM, Changwei District, Shandong Province, 'Report on the Trial Excavation of the Site of Hsian in Chiaohsien, Shantung Province', Wenwu (Cultural Relics), no. 4, Beijing, 1977, p. 71, fig. 15.

Compare also a very similar axle cap and linchpin set, from the collection of J.W. Alsdorf, included in the exhibition Arts of the Chou Dynasty, Stanford University Museum, Stanford, 1958, cat. no. 49; and two others sold in our London rooms, one on 29th February 1972, lot 107, and the other on 15th July 1980, lot 184; as well as an axle cap of the same type, in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, published in Orvar Karlbeck, 'Notes on Some Chinese Wheel Axle-Caps', Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, no. 39, Stockholm, 1967, pl. 2, fig. A6, together with a very similar linchpin illustrated on pl. 16, fig. C.