FIVE SMALL GOLD 'STAG' PLAQUES

NORTHEAST CHINA, 6TH-5TH CENTURY BC

Details

FIVE SMALL GOLD 'STAG' PLAQUES
NORTHEAST CHINA, 6TH-5TH CENTURY BC
Each plaque is finely cast as a recumbent stag, the legs tucked under its body, and the upturned head with antlers formed by three rings. Four of the plaques have flat backs set with small attachment loops while the fifth is pierced through the muzzle for suspension.
1 in. (2.7 cm.) wide; total weight 24.3 g

Provenance

Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, no. CK25 and CK26.
Sotheby's London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 2 and lot 3 (part).

Literature

Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, cat. nos. 25, 26.
Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection. The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, nos. 24, 25.

Exhibited

Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1954-55, cat. nos. 25, 26.
New York, Asia House Gallery, "Animal Style" Art from East to West, 1970, cat. no. 129 (part).

Sale room notice

Please note that the quantity of this lot should read a group of five (5) in the Chinese caption.

Lot Essay

Ornamental plaques of this type would have served as personal ornaments for the people of the Dongbei (Northeast China) ca. 600 BC. In most instances they would have been made of bronze, such as the set of twenty in the collection of Shelby White and Leon Levy illustrated by Jenny F. So and Emma C. Bunker in Traders and Raiders on China's Northern Frontier, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington D.C., 1995, p. 160, no. 83, and again by Emma C. Bunker, Nomadic Art of the Eastern Eurasian Steppes, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2002, p. 158, no. 135. It is far more rare to find ornaments of this type made of gold, which would have indicated the elevated status of the wearer.

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