WINTER EXHIBITION 2008 - Roger Keverne

12 ROGER KEVERNE WINTER 2008
5
A very fine gold- and silver-inlaid bronze chariot finial
Warring States period or Western Han dynasty
Height: 4I in, 11.4 cm
of cylindrical form with three raised rings around the centre, decorated with simple inlay
designs of silver vertical lines and gold S-scrolls. The upper and lower portions are decorated
with broad friezes of complex, elegant, highly stylised bird scrolls in gold and silver inlay.
The bronze surface is now a particularly attractive mellow reddish-brown tone.
Formerly in the collection of Charles Gillot (1853–1903), bought in 1900 from Laurent Héliot,
Paris, and sold at Maître Paul Chevallier, Paris, 8–13 February 1904, lot 1020 (label remaining
on the outside at the base).
A very similar example is illustrated in Huang, Artifacts in the Nanyue King’s Tomb of Western
Han Dynasty, no. 63, p. 147.
For further fittings with similar designs, see Hansford, The Seligman Collection of Oriental Art,
Vol. I, fig. A52, pl. XXVI; Uldry, Chinesisches Gold und Silber: Die Sammlung Pierre Uldry,
nos. 65 and 66, p. 108; and Watson, Art of Dynastic China, fig. 296.