HOTUNG | 何東 The Personal Collection of the late Sir Joseph Hotung: Part 1 | Day

HOTUNG | 何東 The Personal Collection of the late Sir Joseph Hotung: Part 1 | Day

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 117. A gilt-bronze 'bird' mask, Northern Wei dynasty | 北魏 鎏金銅羽人獸面紋舖首.

A gilt-bronze 'bird' mask, Northern Wei dynasty | 北魏 鎏金銅羽人獸面紋舖首

Auction Closed

October 9, 07:30 AM GMT

Estimate

100,000 - 150,000 HKD

Lot Details

Description

A gilt-bronze 'bird' mask, 

Northern Wei dynasty

北魏 鎏金銅羽人獸面紋舖首


dominated by a bird mask with alert eyes of almond shape above a triple-beak and a toothed mouth, the curled eyebrows detailed with hatching and stippling, all crowned by a symmetrical design in openwork with horned felines and hatted figures, wood stand and Japanese wood box


10.5 by 9.8 cm

Eskenazi Ltd, London, 1986.

P.C. Lu & Sons, Ltd, Hong Kong, 5th January 1986.


埃斯卡納齊，倫敦，1986年

魯氏父子有限公司，香港，1986 年1月5日

Jessica Rawson and Emma C. Bunker, Ancient Chinese and Ordos Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1990, cat. no. 119.


羅森及愛瑪．賓格，《青銅聚英：中國古代與鄂爾多斯青銅器》，香港，1990年，編號119

A similar reticulated bronze mask and its matching ring handle, each centred with a figure flanked by a pair of dragons, were unearthed in Guyuan, Ningxia, and published in 'Ningxia Guyuan Beiwei mu qingli jianbao [A brief archaeological report of a Northern Wei tomb in Guyuan, Ningxia]', Wenwu / Cultural Relics, 1984, no. 6, pp. 46-50, figs 17 and 19. See also another example with a trefoil-crowned zoomorphic mask surmounted by a figure and four animals arranged in a symmetrical design, from the collection of C.L. Rutherston, illustrated in Walter Perceval Yetts, Chinese Bronzes, London, 1925, pl. 9C. A pair of gilt bronze mask and ring handles, formerly in the collections of Walter Hochstadter and Barry L. MacLean, was sold twice in our New York rooms, 20th March 2002, lot 24, and again, 23rd March 2022, lot 248.