Bronze Chimaera (bixie)
Han period, 206BC-220AD
Length: 26.5cm
Height: 18.6cm
Large bronze male chimaera, cast in a striding position, the back left leg extended and right front leg stretched forward, with paws slightly lifted off the ground exposing sharp claws. The head is raised alertly and cast with a pair of long curving horns, pointed ears, rounded eyes with hooded lids, furrowed brow and sharp nose. The mouth is open in a roar, exposing the tongue and fangs. Large tufts of fur, incised with scrolls, stripes and cross-hatching, emerge from the side of the face and under the chin. The broad muscular body, with deep chest and wide haunches, is set with a pair of long open-work wings, incised with cross-hatching to indicate feathering, and the back is cast with a circular tube and a rectangular projection both incised with triangles and circles and left hollow. The entire body of the beast is decorated with loose scroll-work against a ground of circles and hatching. A sinuous tail with feathery projections emerges from tufts of fur at the rear. The underside shows the sexual organ and is decorated with plain and incised bands, with three chaplets visible, one now missing. The bronze has an attractive olive-toned patina with areas of brighter green.
Provenance:
L. Wannieck, Paris.
Adolphe Stoclet, Brussels.
Madame Féron-Stoclet, Brussels.
Exhibited:
Paris, 1934, Musée de L’Orangerie.
Published:
M. Rostovtzeff, ‘L’Art Chinois de l’Epoque de Han’, Revue des Arts Asiatiques, number 2, Paris, October 1924, page 11.
Georges Salles, ‘Bronzes Chinois des Dynasties Tcheou, Ts’in and Han’ (Catalogue of an Exhibition in Musée de L’Orangerie), Paris, 1934, number 417.
O. Sirén, ‘Kinas Konst under Tre Artusenden’, volume I, Stockholm, 1942/43, figure 190.
H.F.E. Visser, ‘Asiatic Art in Private Collections of Holland and Belgium’, Amsterdam, 1948, plate 61, number 148a.
Georges A. Salles and Daisy Lion-Goldschmidt, ‘Collection Adolphe Stoclet’, Brussels, 1956, pages 390-391.
Similar example:
‘Masterpieces of Chinese and Japanese Art: Freer Gallery of Art Handbook’, Washington D. C., 1976, page 21 for a very closely related example without the sockets on its back; also, William Watson, ‘Style in the Arts of China’, Harmondsworth, 1974, number 39.
During the Han period (206 BC-220 AD), there appears to have been an increasing interest in ‘miraculous creatures as omens and portents and as links with the spiritual world’.1 Among the fabulous beasts commonly portrayed was the bixie, in a variety of materials including stone – seen in the large stone sculptures of the spirit roads – jade and, of course, bronze.
In the case of the present bixie (literally to ‘ward off evil’), the figure undoubtedly must have originally been intended to provide powerful spiritual protection for its owner. In addition, however, the tubular sockets on its back indicate that it must have also had a practical function. A number of small bixie sculptures in the round with such sockets in the back have been found, both in bronze 2 and jade.3 It is possible that the sockets were intended for the insertion of a support for a lamp – light apparently also being an important element in warding off evil and aiding the journey in the afterlife.4
1 Jessica Rawson, ‘Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing’, London, 1995, page 351.
2 Su Jian, ‘Luoyang xinhuo shibixie de zaoxingyishu yu Handai shibixie de fenqi’, (The Art of Stone Bixie from Luoyang, and the Dating of Han Dynasty Stone Bixie), Zhongyuan wenwu, (Relics from Central Plain), Zhengzhou, 1995, number 2, page 69, figure 7 for a closely related bronze bixie excavated from Anhui province, Fuyang county, and dated to the early 2nd century, with very similar rectangular and tubular sockets on its back.
3 Jessica Rawson, op. cit., page 353 for a jade bixie, dated to the Eastern Han period (25-220 AD) with a tubular socket emerging from its back and a rectangular socket emerging from its head.
4 Guolong Lai, ‘Lighting the Way in the Afterlife: Bronze Lamps in Warring States Tombs’, Orientations, April 2002, pages 20-28.