J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
MenuPast Exhibition
Bronze and Gold in Ancient China
March 24 - April 12, 2003
25.
A GILT BRONZE DRAGON-HEAD HUANG AND A BI DISC
Eastern Han Dynasty, A.D. 2nd - Early 3rd Century
the wide arc-shaped huang ending in silhouetted dragon heads with large pierced eyes and wide open jaws showing jagged teeth, together with a small domed boss over an attachment spike through the suspension loop; the large bi disc with a small central aperture covered with a high domed boss over a spike for attachment, very freely and loosely engraved with a pair of towers flanked by long-tailed birds and connected by a high angular bridge, with two large characters which may be read as tian men (Gate of Heaven) under the bridge and a winged dragon amidst cloud scrolls above the bridge, the lower half of the disc engraved with a large figure of a guardian deity dressed as a dignitary and with looped cloud scrolls emanating from his shoulders, seated between the two towers and blocking the gateway, all outlined in very thin dotted lines and highlighted in gilding over a silvered background, with a plain gilded border around the edge, the dragon and the disc both showing some bright green corrosion from burial.
Huang: Length 16 inches (40.5 cm)
Disc: Diameter 8 7⁄8 inches (22.5 cm)
A gilt-bronze ornamental disc engraved with a very similar rendering of the same themes, including the two characters tian men (Gate of Heaven) inscribed below the bridge between the towers was among a group of gilt-bronze ornaments discovered in brick tombs in eastern Sichuan province during archaeological work in 1982-1987 and is published in a line drawing in Kaogu, 1998, No. 12, p. 80, fig. 1, no. 2, in a report entitled Chongqing Wushanxian Dong Han liujin tongpaishi de faxian yu yanjiu (Discovery and investigation of Eastern Han gilded bronze ornamental plaques from Wushan county, Chongqing), together with ten other discs and four other engraved gilt bronze panels of various shapes.
Compare also a gilt and silvered bronze disc engraved with the same motif in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, which was received as a donation from the Tanenbaum Collection, illustrated by Klaas Ruitenbeek in the exhibition catalogue entitled Chinese Shadows, Toronto, 2002, cat. no. 13A, p. 58, with a caption and detail image on p. 57
