An exceptional and rare archaic bronze tiger-form fitting, Eastern Zhou dynasty, Spring and Autumn period

拍品描述

Length 6½ in., 16.5 cm Swirling with life despite – or indeed because of – its antiquity, this magnificent tiger belongs to a small group of important bronze tigers that made their way to the West in the early twentieth century. Comparison with other examples of this remarkable form suggests that the Schoenlicht Tiger – an object of immense sculptural power even on this scale – may have once formed part of an even more monumental bronze vessel of a late Eastern Zhou dating. One such vessel, possibly inlaid with gold at a later date, is preserved in the National Museum of Asian Art, Washington and illustrated in Jenny So, Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, New York and Washington D.C., 1995, pl. 43, alongside two comparable vessels, figs 43.1 and 43.3, the latter in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg (accession no. 1970.119) , and a closely related tiger in the St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis (accession no. 63:1953) fig. 43.2 (Fig. 1). As So notes, these monumental supports are cast as individual pieces independent of the main vessel and with vastly different alloy compositions, with a flat, inward-facing surface and marks below the lower jaw that indicate some means of joining them to the foot of the vessel. Aside from the Schoenlicht Tiger, likely preserved in the West since well before its appearance in Visser’s seminal 1948 summary of Dutch and Belgian collectors, and the aforementioned St. Louis Tiger, a further handful of related monumental tigers appear to have arrived simultaneously in the West during the 1930s and 1940s, possibly derived from the same original vessels. This select group includes one tiger from the Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection in the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle (accession no. 45.Ch6.2) illustrated in Asiatic Art in the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, 1973, pl. 77; three from the Pillsbury Collection, now in the Minneapolis Institute of Art (accession nos 50.46.70, 79.1 and 79.2) (Fig. 2); and one from the collection of David David-Weill included in L'Evolution des Bronzes Chinois Archaïques, Musée Cernuschi, Paris, 1937, cat. no. 42 and later sold in our Paris rooms, 16th December 2015, lot 40 (Fig. 3). A further example, or more likely one of the aforementioned, was also sold from the stock of the renowned dealer C. T. Loo, included in his Exhibition of Early Chinese Bronzes, New York, 1939, cat no. 63. Timeworn by more than a century of treasured ownership and touching, the patina of the present tiger is not dissimilar to other storied bronzes, darkened through years of careful preservation, including those preserved in the Qing Imperial Collection. While yet to be traced to any extant bronze vessels, six tigers fittings of this design indeed appear to have been among the treasured possessions of the Yongzheng Emperor, adorning the feet of two matching vessels in his collection illustrated in the Guwan tu (Pictures of Ancient Playthings) scroll preserved in the British Museum, London (accession no. PDF,X.01) (Fig. 4). From antiquity to today, from ancient supports to imperial treasures to objects of scholarly fascination, the Schoenlicht Tiger has remained a constant — its beauty and vigour unchanging through the millennia.

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