A RARE PARCEL-GILT SQUARE MIRROR WITH A PAIR OF DRAGONS

Estimated Value:

6.000 € - 10.000 €

Schätzpreis:

6.000 €

Description:

China, Tang dynasty
9,3 x 9,2 cm
Important Austrian private collection, bought in Austria in the 1990s
Publ. Zeileis 'From Shang to Qing - Three and a Half Millennia of Chinese Bronze', 1999, no. 160, pp. 280-281
Square mirrors, of which this is a fine example, are rare in the Tang period. In the eighth century, increasing insecurity along the frontiers and internal distress interrupted the importation and mining of precious metals, leading in the year 756 to an edict prohibiting production of objects with gilded or inlaid decoration. The edict marked a decline in precious metalworking which increased the appreciation for metal objects being produced
See a similar decorated mirror illustrated by T. Nakano et al., Bronze Mirrors from Ancient China: Donald H. Graham Jr. Collection, 1994, pp. 230-1, no. 85, where the authors note that the practice of decorating the backs of bronze mirrors with silver or gilt-silver sheet with repoussé decoration is first seen in the Sui dynasty, but was most popular in the mid-eighth century on lobed mirrors
Wear, partly corroded

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