WINTER EXHIBITION 2008 - Roger Keverne

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A rare set of eleven gilt-bronze belt plaques
Tang dynasty
Maximum length: 3D in, 8.2 cm
nine of rectangular form and two longer end plaques, each with one curved side. Each of the
smaller plaques is cast with a Central Asian musician seated on a fringed mat; the figure has
an incised beard and hair, curled behind, draped robes and a long, billowing scarf. Four of the
musicians play the paiban (clappers) and five the sheng (pipe harmonica). The two end pieces
are similarly decorated with pairs of figures playing the sheng. The backs of the plaques have
four pins for attachment and the fronts are gilt, with some malachite encrustation.
Formerly in a Western private collection.
Examples of the sheng have been recovered from the tomb of Marquis Yi of the state of Zeng
(circa 433 BC) and are discussed by Feng Guangsheng in So, Music in the Age of Confucius,
pp. 87–99.
A similar set of eleven belt plaques is illustrated in Bronze Articles for Daily Use:
The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, no. 178, p. 201.
Such plaques are more often found in jade: see, for example, Michaelson, Gilded Dragons:
Buried Treasures from China’s Golden Ages, fig. 65, pp. 105–06, for a set of sixteen, excavated
in 1970 from Hejiacun in the southern suburbs of Xi’an, Shaanxi province, and now in the
Shaanxi History Museum; and Watt, The Arts of Ancient China, fig. 75, p. 59, for a set of ten.
ROGER KEVERNE WINTER 2008 23