Bronze and Silver Corner-piece
Late Eastern Zhou period, 4th - 3rd century BC
Height: 11.0cm
Silver inlaid bronze corner-piece cast in the form of two mythical beasts confronted at the corner, their joined heads merging into one. Each beast is shown in profile, in semi-crouching position with one muscular back leg powerfully extended. The head is cast with narrow eyes, a broad ridged snout, and mouth agape, the chin resting on a winged shield-shaped connection between the two bodies. A pair of elongated, pointed ears emerge from the top of the head, along with a pair of curled horns inlaid with fine striations. Each sinuous body, terminating in an S-shaped tail, is inlaid all over in silver with scrolls, rectangles, dots and fine striations to denote fur, and from the back of each beast emerges a powerful curving wing inlaid with rectangles and striations. The entire corner-piece is surmounted by a right-angled bracket inlaid with linked elongated scrolls at the front, and grooved at the back. The reverse of the corner-piece is set with two tabs and two struts joined at right angles in the middle, and is covered with earth and malachite encrustation.
Provenance:
Acquired from Paul Mallon, New York and Paris (22nd December 1920).
Adolphe Stoclet, Brussels.
Madame Féron-Stoclet, Brussels.
Exhibited:
Paris, 1922, Musée Cernuschi.
Amsterdam, 1925, Municipal Museum.
Berlin, 1929, Preussischen Akademie der Künste.
Paris, 1934, Musée de L’Orangerie.
London, 1935-36, Royal Academy of Arts.
Paris, 1954, Musée Cernuschi.
Published:
H. d’Ardenne de Tizac, ‘Animals in Chinese Art’, New York, 1922, plate XVIB.
Leigh Ashton, ‘An Introduction to the Study of Chinese Sculpture’, London, 1924, plate IX, figure 2.
‘Exhibition of Chinese Art’, Municipal Museum, Amsterdam, 1925, number 39.
W.P. Yetts, ‘Bronzes’, Burlington Magazine Monographs, London, 1925, plate 10B.
G. Borovka, ‘Scythian Art’, New York, 1928, plate 72a.
Otto Kümmel, ‘Chinesische Kunst’, Berlin, 1929, number 75.
R. Grousset, ‘Les Civilisations de l’Orient’, Paris, 1930, t. III, page 134, plate 95.
Sueji Umehara, ‘Shina kodo seikwa’, (Selected Relics of Ancient Chinese Bronzes from Collections in Europe and America), Part III Miscellaneous Objects, volume I, Osaka, 1933, plate 52.
Georges Salles, ‘Bronzes Chinois des Dynasties Tcheou, Ts’in and Han’ (Catalogue of an Exhibition in Musée de L’Orangerie), Paris, 1934, number 418.
‘International Exhibition of Chinese Art’, London, 1935-36, number 413.
H.F.E. Visser, ‘Asiatic Art in Private Collections of Holland and Belgium’, Amsterdam, 1948, plate 63, number 129.
Musée Cernuschi, ‘La Découverte de L’Asie’, Paris, 1954, number 417.
Georges A. Salles and Daisy Lion-Goldschmidt, ‘Collection Adolphe Stoclet’, Brussels, 1956, pages 366-367.
Similar examples:
Helmut Brinker and François Louis, ‘Chinesisches Gold und Silber - die Sammlung Pierre Uldry’, Museum Rietberg, Zürich, 1994, pages 82-83, number 23 for a pair of inlaid bronze corner-pieces.
Max Loehr, ‘Relics of Ancient China from the Collection of Dr. Paul Singer’, New York, 1965, page 99, number 71 for another corner-piece almost identical to the Uldry ones.
Sueji Umehara, ‘Rakuyo kinson kobo shuei’, (Report of the Findings of Old Tombs at Jincun, Luoyang), Kyoto, 1937, plate LXVII for a gilded corner mount.
While the corner-pieces cited above seem to be very closely related to each other, particularly the Uldry and the Singer examples, the Stoclet one differs slightly in that the pair of confronted mythical beasts on it are closer to winged dragons than felines. The corner-piece illustrated by Umehara is the most similar in terms of the animals, although it is gilded, rather than inlaid in silver. All these corner-pieces must have once performed the same function: corner supports for a low table, vessel or tray, most probably in sets of four.