Lot 14. A gold-foil fitting, Warring States Period (475-221 BC), 12cm., 4 3/4 in. long. Estimate 2,000 — 3,000 GBP. Lot sold 2,500 GBP. Photo: Sotheby's

cut from paper-thin gold sheet and beaten in the shape of an animal in profile, the head facing right and with a long pointed snout, the curved body finely decorated with a dense design of intertwined dragons and snakes in repousse, glass frame. Weight 4g.

Exhibited: Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1954-55, cat. no. 9.

Literature: Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, pl. 9.

Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 8.

Note: A pair of gold plaques of this type, from the Mottahedeh collection and illustrated in The Animal in Chinese Art, London, 1968, pl. 111, was included in the China Institute in America exhibition Early Chinese Gold and Silver, China House Gallery, New York, 1971, cat. no. 3, together with another thin gold plaque with a slight design variation, pl. 4, from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Richard C. Bull. S  ee further examples, one in the form of a taotie mask and one cut in the shape of a dragon with a bird's head, from private collections included in Han Wei and Christian Deydier, Ancient Chinese Gold, Paris, 2001, pls. 30- 31.