A CIRCULAR GOLD PLAQUE

LATE WARRING STATES PERIOD, 3RD CENTURY BC

Details

A CIRCULAR GOLD PLAQUE
LATE WARRING STATES PERIOD, 3RD CENTURY BC
The gold sheet plaque is chased on the convex center with six interlaced serpents, their heads facing the 'bead' border and their spines and tails detailed with stippling. The out-turned edge of the plaque is pierced for attachment.
2 3/8 in. (6.2 cm.) diam.; weight 12.5 g

Provenance

Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, no. CK5.
Sotheby's London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 18.

Literature

Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 5.
Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 5.

Exhibited

Copenhagen, Dansk Kunstindustrimuseum, Kinas Kunst i Svensk og Dansk eje, 1950, cat. no.168.
Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, 1954-55, cat. no. 5.
New York, Asia House Gallery, Chinese Gold, Silver and Porcelain. The Kempe Collection, 1971, cat. no. 4, an exhibition touring the United States and shown also at nine other museums.

Lot Essay

A very similar plaque is illustrated in Exhibition of Chinese Arts, C. T. Loo & Co., New York ,1941-1942, no. 207, identified as being from Jincun, and now in the collection of The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Two others are in the collections of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm and the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University. (Fig. 1) A larger example (14 cm. diam.) described as the gold veneer covering of a bronze plaque, dated Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BC), is illustrated by Simon Kwan and Sun Ji, Chinese Gold Ornaments, Hong Kong, 2003, pp. 150-51, pl. 13.

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