J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
MenuPast Exhibition
Ancient Chinese Bronzes
March 19 - April 9, 2011
21.
A PAINTED BRONZE MIRROR
Han Dynasty (206 B.C. – A.D. 220)
decorated with figures, animals and sparse elements of landscape in a wide band enclosed by the plain silvery-bronze outer border with upturned rim and a narrow concave inner band enclosing a recessed ground cast in flat relief with a eight-point stellate collar surrounding the pierced central knop rising from a small inset medallion painted in bright red; the main decoration in the outer band painted in white, black and green over a vermilion ground with various scenes including three figures in a chariot drawn by white horses following a rider on a galloping horse, small groups of standing figures and seated figures, thin trees and horses, all partially visible and interspersed with traces of roundels surrounded by stylized green clouds separating the scenes and with line borders and dotted motifs in white at the edges of the red field, the plain reverse polished for use as a reflecting surface, showing extensive bright malachite green corrosion.
Diameter 9 inches (23 cm)
A bronze mirror with similar painted decoration on a vermilion ground discovered in 1963 at Hongmiaopo in Xi’an, Shaanxi province and now in the Shaanxi History Museum is illustrated in Zhongguo qingtongqi quanji: tongjing (Compendium of Chinese Bronzes: Bronze Mirrors), Vol. 16, Beijing, 1998, pp. 43-44, no. 44. The same mirror also is published in several other catalogues including Zhongguo wenwu jinghua (Gems of China’s Cultural Relics), Beijing, 1992, pl. 116; and in the catalogue of special exhibition organized by the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky, Imperial China: The Art of the Horse in Chinese History, Prospect, 2000, p. 141, no. 124.
Another example of this very rare type of painted bronze mirror, in the Harvard University Art Museums, donated by Grenville L. Winthrop in 1934, is illustrated in Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, Cambridge, 1969, pp. 58-59, no. 56. Compare also the painted bronze mirror of this type illustrated by Liu et. al. in Recarving China’s Past: Art, Archaeology, and Architecture of the “Wu Family Shrines,” Princeton, 2005, pp. 380-383, no. 39.
漢 彩繪人物車馬銅鏡
徑 23 厘米