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Lot Essay
This distinctive type of knife, called a xiao dao, was used for preparing bamboo strips to be used as stationery for calligraphy written with brush and ink. Knives of this type are associated with Southern regions of China, around the Yangzi River basin.
A bronze knife of very similar form unearthed in 1965 from a Chu culture site northwest of Ji’nan, Hubei, and now in the Hubei Provincial Museum, is illustrated by J. Rawson in Mysteries of Ancient China: New Discoveries from the Early Dynasties, London, 1996, pp. 150-51, no. 69.
Another similar knife, but of smaller size, unearthed in 1978 from the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng (d. 433 BC) is illustrated in the excavation report, Zeng Hou Yi mu (Tomb of Marquis Yi of State Zeng), vols. I-II, Beijing, 1989, pl. LXXXIV, no. 1 in vol. II. See, also, a related bronze knife exhibited at the Osaka Municipal Museum and illustrated in the catalogue, Chūgoku Sengoku jidai no bijutsu (Chinese Art of the Warring States Period), Osaka, 1991, p. 101, no. 144.
A bronze knife of very similar form unearthed in 1965 from a Chu culture site northwest of Ji’nan, Hubei, and now in the Hubei Provincial Museum, is illustrated by J. Rawson in Mysteries of Ancient China: New Discoveries from the Early Dynasties, London, 1996, pp. 150-51, no. 69.
Another similar knife, but of smaller size, unearthed in 1978 from the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng (d. 433 BC) is illustrated in the excavation report, Zeng Hou Yi mu (Tomb of Marquis Yi of State Zeng), vols. I-II, Beijing, 1989, pl. LXXXIV, no. 1 in vol. II. See, also, a related bronze knife exhibited at the Osaka Municipal Museum and illustrated in the catalogue, Chūgoku Sengoku jidai no bijutsu (Chinese Art of the Warring States Period), Osaka, 1991, p. 101, no. 144.